Overview
An unconventional love story…
In a dystopian near future, single people, according to the laws of The City, are taken to The Hotel, where they are obliged to find a romantic partner in forty-five days or are transformed into animals and sent off into The Woods.
Review
I may be going through Yorgos Lanthimos burnout after watching The Lobster. There are directors who bring out unique works, their styles are unlike any other. And, over time, their obsessions with art and style trample everything else, most importantly the story. I recently gave Poor Things a 4-star review and The Killing of a Sacred Deer 3.5-stars. Now The Lobster is basically a rewarmed, chubbier Colin Farrell who again falls to the Lanthimos style of character. He now talks like he’s either slowed by a horrible depression, a touch of retardation, or is part-robot. Quite similar to the leaner Colin Farrell who plays the surgeon in The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Not only is the dialogue stiff and monotonous, so is the repeating end result of movies by this director.
Now I’m revisited my reviews of Lanthimos films. Strip away the unique style and art of his films, are they really that great of films? Yes, they are weird. Many people claim they like them, but also state they don’t make a lick of sense. I’m starting to feel differently about my ratings because The Lobster is just a similar formula from a director who seems to be in love with his avante garde style and “art”. Meanwhile, The Lobster was as monotonous as Colin Farrell’s speech patterns. Weird, yes, but it’s not that hard to come up with weird ideas and display them in a different way. But Lanthimos seems to be taking each new weird story and morphing them into similar frames of art.
I just wasn’t impressed with this film. Worse yet, I’m thinking I’ve been fooled like others into putting this director on a pedestal.
Rating: ★½ (out of 5)
