Imagine attending the Cannes Film Festival for the first time. Going with your pores wide open, determined to see anything of potential value you can possibly fit into your schedule. Leaving for the airport now, planning to land at Nice airport tomorrow afternoon. With nothing better to do you decide to re-review the list of official selections, and you start thinking a little harder about the latest from oddball Dogtooth director Yorgos Lanthimos — The Lobster. Some kind of parable about singlehood, conformity and totalitarianism, pic is about a society in which being single is illegal. Singles are routinely arrested and sent to “The Hotel”, where they have 45 days to pair up with someone. If they fail, they’re transformed into an animal of their choosing and released into “The Woods.” Now, does this sound like something an impetuous, none-too-bright drunk would think up around 2:30 am? What are the odds Lanthimos was going through a romantic dry spell when he wrote the script? And who, to get back to the premise, could possibly fail to find a mate under these circumstances? Obviously singles would find someone on at least a pretend basis, if for no other reason than to avoid being turned into a four-legged beast of some kind. I found a place in my head for Dogtooth and I know Lanthimos is a kind of late-Bunuelian, crazy-salad type of guy but The Lobster just sounds whimsical and undeveloped. Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, John C, Reilly, Olivia Colman, Ben Whishaw and Lea Seydoux. What, honestly, would your reaction be to this thing as your France-bound flight taxis onto the runaway?
