"THE LOBSTER" (2015) Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos #thelobster #film #movies

"Directed by Greek born filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos, The Lobster was his sixth all time feature length cinematic release in 2015, his first in the English language and, if you pardon the eating metaphor, the meat in the sandwich of two of his more well known releases with Dogtooth in 2009 and The Killing of a Sacred Deer in 2017. This particular film has long been on my desired “watch list” radar due to my acting admiration for Colin Farrell (and I seem to be having a “season” of his films currently — please see my recent reviews of In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths and The Banshees of Inisherin), his fellow cast members including the magnificent Olivia Colman, Ashley Jensen, Ben Whishaw, John C Reilly and of course, the always enigmatically brilliant, Michael Smiley. I’ve also long been drawn to the film poster with its missing pieces and finally, as Wednesday 29th March 2023 tiptoed into the early morning of Thursday 30th March, I settled into as bizarre a tale as I’ve recently watched. But was it any good?

The answer is yes, and almost.

I watch a lot of films (and I don’t always pen my thoughts on every one), but I seem to have recently stumbled upon a number that are very distinctly in two halves, and The Lobster, to my eye, is very definitely one of them. As I hope I’ve conveyed with my opening ten minute appreciation at the commencement of this article, the film goes from strength to ultra bizarre strength from here for the first hour, and within the confines of a lakeside hotel that felt like a prison. Olivia Colman’s hotel manager character is as cold and detached as ice with rarely a smile passing her lips (a definite characteristic of a film that is LAUGH OUT LOUD hilarious at times), but the regimentation and routines of the hotel in league with the prisoners (sorry, guests) all in uniformed attire (suits or prison style dark blue and black for the males/flowery dresses for the females) and there are punishments meted out for transgressors of etiquette or rules with a zero tolerance policy for anyone wishing to not participate in the hotel’s strict daily routines. Just wait for the daily regime and somewhat “roll call” or the cringe and wince inducing singing of “Something’s Gotten Hold of my Heart” as our dead eyed lovebirds try to secure a dance with the fairer sex!"

The above is an extract from my spoiler free review of "The Lobster" I originally penned and published to my Medium blog site on 31st March 2023 with the review in full linked below.

https://medium.com/@stephenblackford561/the-lobster-2015-32b5c5037e49

This review forms part of the 7 volumes of my "essential film reviews collection" in e-book and Kindle form, with all 7 volumes free to read if you have an Amazon Kindle "Unlimited" package.

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