Wow, this movie is weird…

"The Lobster" is a film you probably haven’t heard of unless you’ve been paying really close attention. It’s directed by a man named Yorgos Lanthimos who is actually a very interesting director, and it stars Colin Farrell. Story? Pretty much in the near future, the people who are happy and with a husband or wife (or just boyfriend or girlfriend) get to stay put where they are and be happy, while the single people are sent to a hotel where if you don’t find a partner in a specific amount of time, you get turned into an animal of your choice for the rest of your life.

Yeah, if you couldn’t tell by the opening sentence and by the storyline alone, this movie is…different… Honestly, it’s probably the best movie I have seen all year so far. But let’s be honest, a lot of people are not going to like this movie. Why? Well, I’ll try to explain it the best I can without any spoilers. All of the characters speak in incredibly dull, monotone voices, it’s incredibly slow paced and feels longer than it needs to be, and the humor feels very awkward and uncomfortable, but it’s intentional. The humor here is for a certain taste. To top it all off, it has a very ugly and honestly kind of depressing atmosphere. Yeah, just know what you’re going into.

So why do I think it's genius? For one thing it doesn’t try to shove its morals and message down your throat. It lets the audience figure that one out on their own, whenever something undeniably strange happens, it’s not for no reason. Director Yorgos Lanthimos is great at that, he knows exactly how he wants to tell his story, but not in a way that could come off as annoying. The movie is very self-aware of its strange nature, but it uses that to make the story have more meaning than it actually does. This movie is very dissectible, right when it ended me and my friends have a very long conversation about what the film really meant and how the film affected us personally because once you leave "The Lobster" it will have an effect on you no matter what you think of it.

It’s the kind of film that will have you thinking for days to come. Not many movies can do that successfully nowadays. Without spoiling anything, I think this film is just a deep satirical look on the social constructs of relationships, just told in a very different way. I think that’s more the easy analysis there, but that’s what I have so far after seeing it twice.

Another reason why I think its genius is just its story. I honestly have never seen anything like it and it’s a breath of fresh air to finally see originality in movies again, even though I know people aren’t going to like this movie. It may be weird, not all of your questions may be answered by the end of the film (trust me the first time I saw this, several people walked out of the theater halfway through the movie), but that’s what a movie is supposed to do. It’s supposed to challenge you as an audience member and not spoon feed everything to you. "The Lobster" is a prime example of not holding your hand through the whole thing and letting you put the pieces together yourself.

So overall, "The Lobster" is the best movie I have seen so far this year. Do I think it’s funny? Yes, this movie has my sense of humor. Will everyone think it’s funny? God no. Do I think it’s clever? Yes, this is one of the cleverest films I have seen in a long time. Will everyone think the same as me? No. Safe to say this film is an acquired taste, but this film just has so much to offer the average audience member. So much so that I feel like I missed a few things to put in this review. So if you’re interested, check it out.