The Lobster

On Tuesday, May 24, 2016, I went to see the movie The Lobster, featuring Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, John C. Reilly, Léa Seydoux and Ben Whishaw.

The movie is set in a dystopia where the city has declared that single people are a burden to society and that couples are more safe and stable.  So, if for whatever reason people become single, they are checked into this hotel where they have 45 days to find another love...  If not, they will be turned into an animal of their choosing and released into the woods.

This movie is a commentary on many things...  What it means to be a couple...  Lots of focus is on finding a common interest...  For example, both people have a limp, or both people have a lisp, or both people have nosebleeds, or both people have no feelings...  And for fear of being turned into an animal, certain people resort to lies in order to avoid that fate...

But then it also comments from the other side...  Because in this movie, there is also a society of loners, where people must be single...  Falling in love, relationships, romance, flirting is not allowed and is punishable.  In this faction, everything about being single is deemed important and all values that are attributed to couples is frowned upon.  No intercourse can be had...  It's just masturbation.

It seems like that in this movie, there is no happy medium between the two...

Perhaps this is a social commentary on what our society has become...  Our society has become the instant gratification (swipe right on Tinder, quick messages and quickies on Grindr and all sorts of other apps) and not about the long term...

Some parts of the movie were hard to watch and towards the end of it, I felt that the movie was getting too long.  But, aside from those issues, the rest was enjoyable.