Love, Lies, and Lobsters: Yorgos Lanthimos's The Lobster Explained

"Now, have you thought of what animal you want to be if you end up alone?"

"Yes, a lobster."

The Lobster is an immensely interesting film. Immediately after having seen it, a million questions started to pop up in my mind: “What happened at the end?”, “What happened in the beginning?”, and, perhaps most importantly, “What was that all about?” were some of the biggest questions, among others. Luckily for me, I believe that by explicitly sorting through that last question, nearly all other questions (including the other two I listed) could be solved as well, by intention or not. So, without further ado, I present to you my analysis on The Lobster: let’s begin.

The film opens on an unnamed woman driving a car, with the reflection of a man rapping his fingers in the seat next to her being seen throughout, driving towards an undisclosed location. Abruptly, she stops at the side of the road, and walks out, calmly and holding something we would soon become very keen to: a gun. The woman stands still for a moment, aims, and shoots a grazing donkey, its body fatally damaged and roiling on the ground from the bullets. The donkey’s apparent partner walks over to it, appearing to unaware of what to do. The woman has yet to move.

Cut to the film’s title.

If that isn’t a dark opening, I don’t know what is. Of course the scene introduces us to the film’s brilliant cinematography, talented cast, and nearly everything else in between, but it leads us in to the progressively dark world of The Lobster as well, perfectly setting the overall tone for the remaining two hours.

After that, world building is set at a neck-breaking (yet still appropriate) speed: we learn that in this dystopian society, having a suitable human partner is an absolutely necessity. If you don’t have a mate at any given time, you are checked into a “hotel,” in which you have 45 days to find someone you choose to spend the rest of your life with, or be turned into an animal of your pre-determined choosing. Enter David, a lonely, recently divorced man who often sits by his lonesome, only accompanied by his brother, who, after having failed the aforementioned quest, has since been turned into a dog (David’s choice of animal is a lobster, hence the film’s title).

The rules of the hotel are very strange: you have to choose between being a recorded heterosexual or homosexual preference, choosing a rounded up or down shoe size instead of something in between (44 ½ in European counting, for instance), and more, all things that limit you to one of two categories. Even the people you choose as potential partners are put into labeled groups, too: a pair of lovers, more often or not, will share a peculiar trait that makes them unique in some way, once again putting humans into destined categories.

There are some things that are allowed, though: David makes two friends/acquaintances at the hotel, and often talks to them, albeit in a more robotic state than one might think (some more interesting developments happen with these friends as well, such as one getting their hand forced into a toaster for masturbating). Some days into his stay, David is approached on a bus headed for a routine “Loner-hunting” session (Loners are escaped residents who would much rather live alone in the woods than be forced to choose a partner: it’s not hard to imagine what will happen to them when they are found) by a woman- simply known as the Butter Biscuit Woman, for her consistent love for the snacks- interested in garnering his attention. He declines the offer, with the conversation ending with a chilling line from the woman, stating that if she does not find a mate in her short, remaining days, she will commit suicide via jumping out of a hotel window.

Jump she does, with the camera focusing on her suicide from a raised angle, pointed down at her, with butter biscuits spread across the ground adjacent to her body. She wails in pain, the camera refusing to let up the shot, only pardoning the audience when David walks by and talks to a cruel, violence-loving bystander. He, with only a few days left at the hotel, notes how he wishes the Butter Biscuit Woman dies slowly, much to the agreement of the witness.

After a few trials of cold-heartedness, the heartless woman agrees she and David are a match, and are set to be moved into a couples’ room as soon as possible. Following a disastrous unnumbered amount of nights, the relationship ends with David’s brother/dog being brutally and cruelly murdered by his partner, with our main character finally being able to pent up his emotions no more, and cries. The heartless woman notes she knew he was faking his lack of emotions all along, taking him down to the lobby to turn him in. However, he manages to escape his captor, and, with the assistance of a sympathetic maid, tranquilizes the woman and proceeds to drag her to the Transformation Room, proposedly to turn her into a creature “nobody would want to turn into.”

The film then takes a 180-degree turn, and proceeds to play out its second half in a very odd fashion: David flees the hotel, meeting up with a group of Loners in the woods, and lives in solitude peace away from the world’s dystopian state.

Now, it is important to note that the Loners operate on a strict set of rules: “Any romantic or sexual relations are punished,” says the leader of the Loners, with the punishments for such acts being excruciatingly cruel. Despite these warnings, though, David manages to find a perfect match for himself (the connection between the two relates to their nearsightedness), with the two of them going on routine supply trips to a nearby city together, secretly enjoying their supposed fake relationship.

All throughout the film, we have been led through specific actions of David’s character and some events that happened around him. This helpful dialogue is cut short, though, as it is revealed that David’s partner was writing all of this in a diary, recently found by a Loner, who turns it in and reads it to their leader. As soon as this is revealed, the whole narration suddenly feels a bit less personal: the voice is not someone talking to us, but rather literal diary entries being read aloud by someone completely different to our expectations, thus taking away a human connection we had assumed was permanent.

Following this reveal, the nearsighted woman is taken to the aforementioned city, told she will be receiving an operation to fix her nearsightedness, when, in reality, she is being blinded in order to sever her connection with David. In retaliation, the woman stabs one of the people involved, the leader making no note of it, and then proceeds to take her back to David. After a few minutes of pretending everything is fine, she finally admits to her partner that she has been blinded, much to David’s dismay, but also to his understanding as well. Having some blindness coping tests completed, David conspires to (indirectly) kill the leader, with the specifics being knocking her out, putting her into a shallow, uncovered grave, and leaving her to be killed by dogs, a threat she previously told him when making him dig the same exact grave for himself. The plan works perfectly, and they escape into the city, only stopping at a nearby restaurant for a break. When there, David asks for a streak knife, telling his partner he won’t be long in making himself blind, supposedly recreating their severed bond. In the bathroom, David aims the knife towards his left eye, reluctant to do so. The camera cuts back to the woman, the film’s final words being spoken by her: “Thank you very much,” in response to a waiter refilling her glass of water. The shot lingers on her for a bit, various construction and people behind the window she is sitting next to. Cut to black.

Wow, that took way longer than expected, which goes to show just how packed The Lobster is in general (hey, the long amount of writing here and sheer amount of information the film has to offer is most certainly not a bad thing; if anything, that’s a sign of film greatness).

So what was the overall point of the film, though? Well, to me, it isn’t something that requires years of analyzing to do: The Lobster is dark comedy, focusing on modern day depictions of society, humans, and love. All throughout the film, we see rudimentary love: David partners up with a heartless, cruel woman (who ends up murdering his brother, no less) to save himself from a destined fate, peoples’ ties and bonds are cut when they do find something and common, and much, much more.

Even the universe of the film itself has a message, though: and it’s right in front of our very eyes.

Think about the basic outline of what the hotel does… do you notice anything, perhaps related to what happens to people if they don’t find love? That’s right: the theme of humans turning into animals when they don’t find a partner is a direct allegory to society’s current take on love. If you don’t marry, have kids, and do all of the standard things society expects you to do by a certain time frame, you will be turned into a wild beast, roaming pastures uncivilized. The Loners mirror this, too: if you choose to abandon society’s view of love, you are forced to live disgracefully in the woods, unable to partner up with anyone more given your choice.

The Lobster is all about love, and the way society portrays it today.

If only we weren’t so blind.