Watched this one on DVD and it was COMPELLING. It's called a wickedly funny comedy but I can't imagine laughing. I saw the film as a major commentary (or deconstruction, if you will) of the pressure to make people conform to couplehood. Even recently widowed people check in to what is an insane asylum. The clinics management and staff are simply absurd. Patients, willingly it seems, check themselves into the place and have 45 days to find a partner and give up being a "loner." Though some of them have been married before, there is no time for grieving. The awkwardness of the patients gives the impression that they are all seriously disturbed, beyond depression. There is an emotional coldness to everyone.
The staff performs odd plays to illustrate what happens to a man or woman who isn't coupled. And you learn to "go hunting," to kill single people.
What happens if you "don't make it," ? Well, you get turned into an animal of your choice, by surgery of some sort. It's set in the realizable future, but take heart - this surgery isn't available yet in the United States. The character Colin Farrel plays checks in with his brother - a dog. He wants to be a lobster for good reasons such as longevity and fertility. Maybe the fertility is a clue, because as the days go by, he sees that he cannot stay partnered up with the woman who slaughters his dog brother, and escapes into the woods.
Ah - the woods! The city versus country dichotomy. What's more natural than the woods? But since conformity is in question, no doubt that the loners who live in the woods also expect conformity. So darn if The Lobster does find love with another loner, a woman who is purposely blinded in the city by a doctor who must somehow be paid well by this rebel leader.
Of course you have to suspend disbelief, and it's all surreal, but if you're like me you'll love this movie for reasons well beyond humor!
C 2017 Never Married No Kids - BlogSpot
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