The Lobster (2015)

While the film was creative in it setting and filming, the strange dialogue, which helped set a tone, made the interpersonal relationships seem completely forced even when they should not have seemed that way.

The worst part is that I watched it until it stopped. It is as if the film maker didn't have an ending to go to, and just go tired of the movie. Unfortunately, that took a long time. As a short, this film might have been remarkable. As a full length feature, it was just tedious and not entertaining.

On the positive side, it had a great cast who probably did as much as they could with the material they were given. Yorgos Lanthimos wrote, directed and produced the movie and I'm unlikely to want to go see another movie by Yorgos. It was billed as a wickedly funny romance, but was none of those. I did laugh once. It was a single "ha", not a "ha, ha, ha!"

Ultimately a waste of time.

Fmovies: Meh. The film starts with a delightfully surreal premise, and gets off to a promising start as a Strangelovesque dark comedy, or perhaps even a "Being John Malkovich" maze of mind-boggling left turns.

The moments of humor, however, thin out. The plot hews to the obvious even in its twists. The deadpan delivery becomes merely dead, and a sea of intolerably flat affect gradually crushes any empathy we might have for the characters. Exhausted of its premise, disinterested in both the humans who inhabit it and the humans who are watching it, and groping for any sort of social observation that is not already obvious and well-trodden, the film finds it has little left to say and another 90 minutes to say it.

It drags itself, sallow and lifeless, to a cliffhanger conclusion that leaves us wondering what happens next, but not really caring.

I am obviously going against the trend here, so be it. I found the movie pretentious, ill balanced and with none of the nuances other more accomplished directors manage to reveal with their use of absurdism and counterpoint.

First, if the movie had been short, maybe it would have been bearable, maybe, as it stands, its length goes to show, at least for me, that there was not a compass that guided the director, this was a rudderless attempt at social commentary. I don't care if Mr Lanthimos is considered the plus ultra of directors, this is bad.

The movie tries to match absurdism with social commentary, but fails to create a world in which A) the absurd seems plausible and B) the plausible seems absurd. The deadpan, flat delivery of the lines loses all power after the first 30 minutes of the 1h 58m this thing goes on for and the humour, again, always spurred on by the absurdity of the moment/comment/observation, fails to find me (as it failed to find the funny bone of most people in a packed, large movie theatre in London, in fact, first movie I've gone to see in ages where people began to leave the cinema half-way, which I longingly followed with my eyes wishing it was me).

The cinematography is fine, nothing out of the ordinary, but Lanthimos fails to use it to punctuate the absurd moments (something Wes Anderson does very well, as does Paolo Sorrentino) nor is the dramatism enhanced by precise camera work (Hitchcock, Fellini, Truffaut). The dialogue, even in its supposed absurdist nature, is poor, fails to weave across and is uneven. While the leads do a super job, the characters are flat and I don't care for them or what happens to them, which is always a bad sign for me.

There are moments when this thing is good, like the hotel managers singing a duet, but they do not translate across the whole story, mainly because very quickly we leave the only part where there are interesting characters and spend the rest of the movie in the forest.

I found the movie:

-Too long -Pretentious without the grace to be so -flat -Uninspiring -did I say too long? -A convoluted way to tell a story that could have been told with the same intent in less time, with more observant, astute dialogue and far better crafted cinematography -A depressing experience -Not funny, by miles

Having just seen for the first time 'The Great Beauty' followed by 'The Royal Tenenbaums' I realized now what The 'Lobster' could have been but did not have the artistic currency to do. The social commentary is there, no doubt, I just did not like how it was executed.

Maybe I am just a heathen with no taste...but of course, these are my impressions, I know others who truly loved it, and that is good too.

The Lobster fmovies. The Lobster is a curious film with shades of the Coen Brothers or Grand Hotel Budapest (the fact that so much is set in a hotel is incidental, or hotels in movies are places to be avoided). Dysfunctional characters drift through, delivering their lines with humorous lack of awareness and emotion, strange rituals are performed to bond the guests, and all the time the clock is ticking - find a partner, become a couple, within 45 days or be turned into an animal of your choice.

The first part of the film is amusing, quirky and entertaining. The style is pleasant and interesting, despite some nasty moments. Some of the shots drag a little, but it adds to the curious atmosphere. The dry, deadpan dialogue is perfectly delivered, Colin Farrell as the main protagonist shows he really is a fine actor.

Then the film changes. New characters are introduced and the mood becomes much bleaker. No longer is this humorous, the stakes have changed. It is hard to identify with the new characters as we had already invested emotion in the earlier ones. And it gets worse, leading to en ending that is as unclear as it is unpleasant.

The Lobster cannot seem to make up its mind what kind of a film it is, is it simply saying that we are all venal and craven in the end? If so, why the humour at the beginning? And if we are capable of love, is it really so shallow as to be broken by people saying things?

I loved the beginning, I didn't like the end. This was one fish dish that left a bad taste.

The film's concept: all adults who have recently lost a partner through death or divorce are sent to a hotel, where if they do not fall in love within 45 days, they are surgically transformed into an animal of their choosing. ''A lobster's a great choice''.

I try not to explain the film's plot when somebody asks, so as not to completely dissuade them from viewing. Maybe this ridiculous concept is in reference to how ridiculous forcing someone to fall in love due to common interests is, or even just forcing someone to eventually get married, a practice common in the modern world. A comment on the societal pressures put on single adults. There are constant references and reminders to how even numbers are perfect, a couple. There is a further commentary on applying limiting labels and boxes to people, bisexual not being an option on the sexuality question, no half-sized shoes.

Collin Farrell and Rachel Weisz, along with the many minor characters, all add to the film greatly. There are no weak actors which I could point out. The screen writing can be fast and witty at times, but I felt the ''quirkiness'' was definitely overdone. The robotic and monotonous speech pattern was generally funny but also overdone.

I have spoken to many people who do not enjoy this film, and I can definitely respect and understand their opinion. The Lobster is not for everyone, with it's strange plot, writing and imagery. It's script is similar to that of a Wes Anderson film, but still remains very dark, and at times, disturbing. It is without a doubt, a slow film, heavily reliant on dialogue (which many people won't even find funny).

I would recommend the film to people who enjoy quirky films such as Frank, Juno or The Grand Budapest Hotel, although The Lobster is definitely darker than those examples.

Probably one of the strangest film I've ever watched.

"The Lobster" takes the tropes and expectations of modern-day relationships and satirises them almost out of existence. The farcical "Hotel" aims to partner 'loner' humans with each other (based on 1 characteristic) in a stress-inducing timeframe of 45 days, often resulting in deception and the suppression of true feelings in order to garner a relationship as a means of escape. The other side of the coin is the outcast tribe living a meagre existence in the woods, where even flirting is punished with physical mutilation. The cold mechanical delivery of every single character's lines emphasises the absurdity of the situation, and bizarrely makes the jokes even funnier. Not since Richard Ayoade's "The Double" has cripplingly awkward humour been so effective. This film has a lot to say about the fickle nature of relationships, set against the background of a dystopian society. The cinematography is as flat as the actors' delivery; this contributes to the emotionally-stunted, often silent world that the characters inhabit. The ending is beautifully ambiguous and surprisingly tense for such an understated scene. A score which fluctuates from terse, rough string melodies to Italian opera heightens the sense of weird-art-film which pervades "The Lobster": definitely a film which requires full attention, reflection, and a mind open to arty weirdness, "The Lobster" is a remarkable oddity.