Louren Pabria C.

Panganoron GEC103-Xx4
Reflection Paper
The Lobster Movie 2015

Set in the non-specific near future, "The Lobster" follows the main character, David, as
he tries to find love again after his wife leaves him for another man. Accompanied by his brother,
a border collie named David, is escorted out of his home in the city and willingly forced to live at
a hotel for singles. The single people only have 45 days to find true love. If they fail, they are
transformed into the animal of their choice. David is a quiet and introverted man whom, if he
can't find love, wishes to be turned into a lobster because they can live to be over a hundred years
old and stay fertile their whole lives. David doesn’t seem to have a great deal of personality as he
drifts through the first few days at the hotel, only being pushed along by the other characters as
the narrator gives the audience glimpses of insight into David’s life, his feelings, and the people
around him. By serendipity, David befriends two other men staying at the hotel. The first is a
young man with a noticeable limp, and the other a wimpy older man with a lisp. These two act as
foil characters to David.
They highlight his difficulty finding companionship and his determination not to be
alone. David interacts with a variety of other characters known only by their specific traits such
as the biscuit woman and the heartless woman. However, his demeanor is always the same
somber, direct, and nervously flat tone that is often carried by every character in the film. This
monotone voice had to have been an intended directorial move that leaves almost all the
characters feeling more like robots trying to comprehend love than human beings seeking out
their soul mates.Despite the stark and cold atmosphere, "The Lobster" is billed as a comedy. It
does have funny parts - just don’t expect to be laughing out loud. The film gets a lot of its laughs
from subtle humor sprinkled in the background or lightly placed in conversation. It will become
more and more common to see random animals that don’t belong in the remote English
countryside as the film moves along.More so than a comedy, "The Lobster" is an intelligent film
meant to expose the biases society holds against people who are single.
This point becomes shockingly clear when it is revealed that the only way to extend your
stay at the hotel is to actively hunt down single people who have been so ostracized by the polite
society that they live in the woods in packs and listen to techno music that they dance to by
themselves. The hotel guests are bused to the woods with tranquilizer guns and are given an extra
day at the hotel for every single person they can capture. Instead of the single people living in the
woods being free of the rules that society has placed upon them, they too are forced to live by an
absolute code, this one being celibacy. They can not love or have any sexual relationship with
anyone else who is single or else they will be punished by the group's young and sociopathic
leader. This lack of freedom among the wild shows that people who try to live outside society’s
norms are still locked into these ideas of how life must be. They are unable to truly have that
freedom they seek because outside forces will tell them one way to behave and internal forces
will tell them another.
 While "The Lobster" is smart and at times funny, it can get boring and tedious. Shots will
sustain longer than they feel they should before cutting to another scene, often with little to no
transition. Conversations also have prolonged pauses that cause them to go on far longer than
need be. Personally, I found myself pausing the movie to see not how much was left and how
much more I had to sit through until it was over. So much time is spent just showing characters
stare off into the distance, that time would have been better spent establishing the world around
the characters. The audience is never given a significant sense of time, location, or understanding
of the society they are expected to sit and watch.
With all of its quirks and style "The Lobster" is a buff's movie. It requires an active
audience that is willing to put the work in to try and understand the story instead of just dropping
into your lap how you are supposed to think and feel about the characters on the screen. While
my attention and interest fall towards the end of the film, I found myself thinking about the
movie the next day. I was actively deconstructing what I saw and trying to better understand it.I
ended up liking the film more the day after I saw it than during my initial viewing. With its
strange characters and ill-defined setting, "The Lobster" is a witty critique of society that can
make an active audience member think and reflect upon their own love life.