I have a special treat in store!
I recently watched "The Lobster" (2015). The decision to watch that film ran strongly counter to the counsel of my mom, who will henceforth be referred to as PsychoCineMom, and who hated, HATED "The Lobster."
After seeing the movie and formulating my own strong opinions, I decided to check in with PsychoCineMom to discuss.
LUCKY FOR YOU DEAR READERS, I recorded that discussion. Below, please find, for your immense reading pleasure:
"The Lobster": A Discussion with My Mom,
Who Hated It
Needless to say: this post contains spoilers. Spoilers galore. Spoilers contained herein largely concern "The Lobster," obviously, but also another of director Yorgos Lanthimos's films, "Dogtooth" (2009). And kind of but not really "In Bruges" (2008). As a result, this post also includes another PsychoCinematic first: a jump! (See the fancy html coding IN ACTION below!)
I know I just said that henceforth mom will be referred to as PsychoCineMom, but for shortness-of-title-in-the-interview-transcription's sake, she will henceforth be referred to as PCMom.
Because the interview was thorough, you will note that I have also included subheadings for anyone who's interested in hearing PCMom's perspectives on various "Lobster"-related topics. Those headings include:
- PCMom Summarizes "The Lobster"
- PCMom Rates "The Lobster"
- PCMom Identifies the Only Parts of "The Lobster" She Liked
- PCMom Discusses the Aesthetics of "The Lobster"
- PCMom Discusses Her Absolute Least Favorite Part of "The Lobster"
- An Assessment the Main Character's Motivation
- I Reveal My Feelings About "The Lobster"
- I Put My Feelings About "The Lobster" In Context Given that "Dogtooth" was Worse
- I Acknowledge My Capacity to Revel in Sadistic Humor
- An Assessment of the Main Character's Character
- I Reveal My Rating of "The Lobster"
- PCMom Should Maybe Not Be Allowed to Interview Yorgos Lanthimos
- An Assessment of the Use of Animal Cruelty in Cinema
- PCMom Reassesses Her Rating
Without further ado:
PCMom Summarizes "The Lobster"
PC: If you were the movie to someone who hadn't seen it yet, how would you summarize the movie?
PCMom: HORRIBLE.
The way I explained it to PsychoCineBrother was there's these two parallel universes. In one universe, if you don't find someone to match with, you're turned into an animal, and the people are pretty horrible to you. In the other universe, you can't have any attachment to anyone at all, so there's no middle ground at all. And in the universe in which you have to find someone to match with, you have to find the most peculiar characteristics to match on, like do you have nosebleeds.
The main character, Colin Farrell, who is chubby interestingly, decides to take a fancy to the coldest, meanest person in the universe inside this place, because he's there with his brother who's already been turned into a dog because he wasn't successful in finding a mate. He pursues this woman, who while he's sleeping, to test whether he really has no feelings at all, kicks his brother, the dog, to death. Colin Farrell decides that's too much and leaves. He ends up being in the forest with the folks who are on the outside and not taken in by this notion that you have to find someone who's the right match. The only trouble with them is you can't have any attachment to anyone at all, and he ends up falling for Rachel Weisz, another brilliant actor who I cannot figure out why she's in this movie. And when the leader of the group discovers this, they take her into town and have a surgeon gouge her eyes out. So the end of the movie is Colin Farrell now has to choose standing in the men's room in a rest stop on a highway, he ends standing with two steak knives in front of his eyes and the movie ends.
PCMom Rates "The Lobster"
PC: If you had to give the movie a 1 to 5 rating, 5 being awesome, 1 being the worst thing you've ever seen, what would you give it?
PCMom: I would say--I think it's almost likely the worst movie I've ever seen. It was HORRIBLE. I had to warn people not to see this movie. Can you imagine if PsychoCineFamilyFriend saw that movie? Or even if PsychoCineBrother saw this movie. I mean why I didn't walk out after she kicked the dog to death is beyond me.
PC: So if you had to give it a number, what number would you give it?
PCMom .25
PC: [Laughter] So what's earning it that .25?
PCMom: [Pause] What got it a .25? Interesting depiction of the desolation of modern life in Europe.
PCMom Identifies the Only Parts of "The Lobster" She Liked
PC: So what do you think was the best part?
PCMom: The girl with the nosebleeds telling someone how to get blood out of his white shirt.
PC: What did you like about that?
Actually what I liked was, I had a sense that that couple, he had to keep giving himself nose bleeds, and actually one of the things I liked most was if you don't do well as a couple we'll give you a child. That was pretty funny. And you also had this glimmer of a sense that after Colin Farrell rats him out because they were on the yacht with the little girl, I had a glimmer that they would nevertheless stay together.
PC: Why do you think that is?
PCMom: I don't know. She wasn't happy, but I think they liked each other. On a genuine human level as opposed to, you know, "We've got to be the same." One of the things that struck me, and I may have seen it somewhere, is it's kind of a commentary on modern society and people meeting through electronic dating mechanisms and the most superficial, ridiculous things end up being what may attract a couple. But there is a possibility, and it does happen to people that they form wonderful relationship. It seemed like that couple had a chance.
PC: It seemed like there's something weirdly optimistic about that.
PCMom: Yeah, about the only thing that was weirdly optimistic. I mean the notion that the manager, the manager and his wife were just so campy. When they're dancing and singing together [mimics dancing]. It was kind of ridiculous and funny.
PC: How did you feel about the big reveal moment they had?
PCMom: Of course they were hypocrites. Of course they were like that. It's sort of like, of course. It was a surprise to me that they were actually a couple. I thought they were just professional colleagues until I saw that part. And then, when their relationship's tested, he throws her over in a heartbeat.
PC: How did you feel seeing that?
PCMom: Serves them right.
PC: So it's interesting because I'm hearing how much you hated it, and yet I'm hearing that there are ways in which you responded to this movie. You were with it.
PCMom: To the bitter, bitter end.
PCMom Discusses the Aesthetics of "The Lobster"
PC: So, why do you think the director made the movie the way he did? He made a lot of obvious stylistic choices.
PCMom: Yeah. I mean, to convey this sense of isolation. It's almost like post-Soviet society in a way. Like Corbusier architecture but really worn down. I also felt like it was riffing off of stereotypes--one of the interesting things was the sense that it was like, Switzerland or maybe Germany. And then having this Midlands English couple running things, which was kind of strange. I kind of expected like, ooh the German people or some brutal Scandinavian person. So you have this sense of sort of mixing European cultures in the setting of it. But it's clearly, you felt that he was clearly poking at the Swiss a little bit. Is he Polish?
PC: I believe he's Greek.
PCMom: Greek? Oh, that's right. Hmm.
PC: That doesn't square!
PCMom: It doesn't seem to.
PCMom Discusses Her Absolute Least Favorite Part of "The Lobster"
PC: So I have a guess. What do you think is the worst part?
PCMom: Killing the dog! And why the dog didn't chew her ankle off is beyond me. Because it was his poor docile brother who just wanted to be with someone. I still don't get why he wanted to be a lobster. But his brother, this beautiful springer spaniel. It was horrible! When he took her to the room, whatever the room was, whatever they did to you in there, and he shoved her in there it was like, Poof!
PC: It was a relief.
PCMom: It was a relief! At least somebody's getting their comeuppance.
An Assessment of the Main Character's Motivation
PC: What do you think was Colin Farrell's character's motivation? It is kind of baffling that he chose this sociopath as a partner. What was he doing?
PCMom: I could not figure that out. He'd been thrown over by his wife. So maybe he thought it would be safer with someone who didn't have any feeling?
PC: Maybe. Do you think he was actually in love with Rachel Weisz?
PCMom: Do I think he was? Yes. I think they were actually genuinely attached to one another.
PC: Do you think he does it at the end of the movie?
PCMom: [Sigh] I think he might. As little sense as that makes. You know, here they are, they're on the run, they're in the city where they're not supposed to be, and what's going to happen? I don't know. Maybe they go back to the institution and get to stay together?
I Reveal My Feelings About "The Lobster"
PC: So. Can I tell you what I think of the movie?
PCMom: Of course! I want to hear.
PC: ...I really liked it.
PCMom: [Shock.] YOU LIKE IT IT WAS A HORRIBLE MOVIE. WHAT MAKES YOU LIKE IT.
I Put My Feelings About "The Lobster" In Context Given that "Dogtooth" was Worse
PC: I think I'm at an advantage because I'd already seen another movie by that director. So he did a movie called "Dogtooth" that came out a couple of years ago. And that movie was horrible--I walked out of it never wanting to see that movie again. It was very similar, the aesthetic was very similar in that the acting was very muted, it was very stereotyped, there was definitely animal mayhem, there was some violence, it was definitely bizarre. It was kind of an extreme human isolation theme. It was different in that it was about a family where the father has isolated his adult children from society with a very complex system of lies about the dangers of the outer world. One of the characters basically starts rebelling. The name of the movie, "Dogtooth" refers to this lie that the father tells that, "Okay, you can leave the home, you can be free, you can go out on your own when your lose your dogtooth," meaning your adult teeth. So if I'm remembering correctly the daughter ends up bashing her teeth out, and then stowing away in the trunk of her dad's car. (So spoilers galore.) Again, it's been several years, but I'm remembering the animal-based mayhem is more cat-related than dog-related.
PC: Yeah, right. I mean I completely agree that the darkest and by far most difficult to tolerate part of the movie was when the dog died. I thought that was horrifying and really viscerally upsetting, but I also felt prepared for it. Like as soon as we're like, getting attached to the dog, I'm like, I know this director, he's not letting that dog out of the movie alive. Frankly, that scene aside, I was pleasantly surprised that there wasn't more really nasty violence, because I was definitely expecting it.
[Interlude in which PsychoCineCat scratches our new couch]
PC: So, it's interesting because I could never see "Dogtooth" again and I would be fine, because it almost left me feeling a little queasy--just the aesthetic, and the random violence, and it's kind of horrifying. But then I went to see "The Lobster" and I felt so much more prepared for it because I was oriented to the director's aesthetic, and I also found it much less significantly disturbing than "Dogtooth." So I was able to find it funny in a way that I don't know that there was any humor in "Dogtooth."
PCMom: And in this case it was a parent, I mean a parent-child dynamic of being that cruel to your child is horrifying.
PC: So this feels different. That's an interesting point.
PCMom: These are all adults.
PC: Yes, these are all adults, and there's something different here because the presumption is that this structure in society is imposed from the top down, like from a government. So it's easier to not feel maybe so personally betrayed. So that's different. I also would be interested to hear your thoughts on this: I know you've seen "In Bruges" and I think you liked "In Bruges."
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| "In Bruges" poster = proof they never figured out how to advertise this movie properly. |
In Which I Acknowledge My Capacity to Revel in Sadistic Humor
PC: I felt like, maybe it's just because Colin Farrell is in it, but I think it's similar to "In Bruges." They're both such dark humor. The humor is inky black.
PCMom: I didn't think "The Lobster" was that funny.
PC: Part of the reason I really wanted to hear your thoughts about the hotel manager couple is that we saw the movie on a night when the theater was pretty crowded, and in that scene, it was stone silent during that scene, and I burst out laughing when the gun didn't fire.
PCMom: Why do you think it was stone silent?
PC: Because they didn't think it was funny! I think they didn't think it was funny! I thought it was hysterical! I was like, "Oh my God, this is SO MUCH WORSE!! This is so much worse than killing one of them. Now they both KNOW. They both know and they have to live with each other, and this is their JOB, to like, pitch this bullshit!"
PCMom: Yeah and they don't stay together! What animals did they choose?
PC: Well I think maybe they did and it's like, fate worse than death. I just find that kind of awesome because it's so diabolical.
PCMom: It's a little sadistic. The movie was kind of sadistic, frankly.
PC: Yeah, it is. I mean I also--first of all I feel like it was kind of similar to "In Bruges" in that it's this very very very bleak, dark landscape with a few weird comic elements in it. I also feel like it was kind of a hellish version of Wes Anderson.
PCMom: Yes, I can see that.
An Assessment of the Main Character's Character
PC: Because everyone is kind of stereotyped and flat and stylized. And they're going through these absurd situations as if they're not that absurd. So I was able to react to it as more funny than maybe most people. And I was also fascinated by the premise. I thought it was really interesting figuring out what the rules of this world were. They didn't lay them out for you--you had to kind of pick them up piecemeal. So like, even the opening lines, where he's like, "Does he have glasses or does he wear contacts?" You hear her apologize and he asks that question, and of course at first you're like, "What? What does that have to do with anything?" And then of course later on you infer from them, "Oh, it's because their relationship was based on their sight deficits, and so he's asking, 'Well clearly you found another person who has these same sight problems, so what corrective gear does he use?'" So it's interesting because I don't really understand Colin Farrell's character. He seems a little simple, and a little conniving, like a little bit of a--he doesn't seem to have a lot of integrity. He just wants to make it out alive.
PCMom: Why doesn't that have integrity?
PC: Because the premise is you're supposed to fall in love with someone honestly. And then he outs his friend who's inducing these nosebleeds!
PCMom: But I don't think anyone in that scenario, as in the scene with the hotel manager and his wife, no one falls in love under those circumstances.
PC: And yet he's our hero.
PCMom: So he's our hero because he says, "Screw this, I'm going to go off somewhere else and form a real attachment with somebody."
PC: Well, I don't think he leaves volitionally. He leaves because he gets outed. Because the woman kills his brother, and then he's like "Oh I was just splashing water on my face, I'm not crying," and she's going to go rat him out. And that's why he leaves. He doesn't choose to leave, he has no choice but to leave.
PCMom: He gets rid of her before he leaves. To be truly conniving, he could have just said, "Oh she just left."
PC: No, she wasn't going to leave, she was going to turn him in! That was my impression.
PCMom: No, instead, he offs her by putting her into that room. So if he was really conniving he could've been like, "Well I don't know where she went!"
PC: And stayed in the hotel?
PCMom: Yeah.
PC: See, it's interesting because I kind of experienced him as delightfully cowardly.
PCMom: He was not, he was compliant. He was just going to go along to get along.
PC: Yes! That's a good word for it. He was kind of spinelessly compliant. And part of the reason I think the lingering question at the end is really interesting is I think he did it, too. I really do. I do think he had genuine feelings for Rachel Weisz. And yet, because he's a little bit lily-livered, I'm not 100% sure. He's kind of a wuss. I hope he did it.
PCMom: I hope he figured out that there was no need to do it! I'm serious! I mean, the other alternative is he comes back and says, "This is stupid! One of us needs to be sighted. Let's get out of here!"
PC: You don't think they have accommodations for the visually impaired in this bleak, post-Soviet landscape?
PCMom: No.
I Reveal My Rating of "The Lobster"
PC: For the purposes of comparison, I gave the movie a 5.
PCMom: A FIVE?
PC: ...I really liked it.
PCMom: Well it's got to be something that just hits your funny bone the right way. And so I get that comparison to "In Bruges," but "In Bruges" was a buddy film. The Brendan Gleason character really wants to see the Colin Farrell character get out.
PC: I mean, I think "In Bruges" is by far a better film. I mean, so I'm capping out of my scale if I'm doing 1 to 5, but I just think In Bruges is a transcendently beautiful movie. I think it's really funny, it's really special, but I do think Colin Farrell is bringing something similar to both movies in that there's this sweet, bungling, kind of honestness to his, "I'm just going to try to manipulate this as best I can, but poorly." There's something about him in both movies that I find really appealing and sweet. It's funny that you noted that he was overweight.
PCMom: I heard that he gained 40 pounds for the movie.
PC: Any other thoughts you want to share about the movie? Is there anyone who you would recommend it to?
PCMom: No. One person that I would consider recommending it to is a coworker, but she works in dog rescue, and she would never forgive me for sending her to a movie where someone kicks a dog to death. But otherwise I think she would have the wherewithal to find it interesting.
PCMom Should Maybe Not Be Allowed to Interview Yorgos Lanthimos
PC: Do you have any questions that you would want to ask the director?
PCMom: Do you have any genuine affection for anyone?
PC: [Laughter]
PCMom: Is there any soft, kind, thoughtful, affectionate bone in your body?
PC: [Laughter] You don't think he does?
PCMom: That's a pretty bleak place, given the description of the other movie, to excessively spend all that amount of time in, so it makes me think he's a fairly bitter person, and bleak. I don't know how old a person he is.
PC: I'll look that up. [Googling] He's 43.
PCMom: Does he have a family?
PC: He's married.
PCMom: Does he have children?
PC: I'm just seeing a spouse, no evidence of children.
PCMom: Good.
PC: [Laughter] Harsh!
PCMom: I'm harsh?! I'm not spending time staging scenes of kicking dogs to death.
An Assessment of the Use of Animal Cruelty in Cinema
PC: Well so why do you think he did that? Why would he do that?
PCMom: I think he purposely wanted to horrify people. It sounds like given some of the things you've described, he wants to shock people.
PC: Just for the sake of shocking them?
PCMom: Yeah.
PC: It's interesting, because I sort of experienced it differently. I'm not saying at all that I enjoy it or like it, but I see the animal maltreatment themes as--it's interesting because the placement of the scenes in both movies is kind of at the midpoint. It's kind of a turning point.
PCMom: It triggers a real turning point in the movie.
PC: Yeah, and there's something special and important about that, right? I sort of see it as one way of him starting to get us oriented to precisely how brutal this world is.
PCMom: It was pretty clear it was pretty brutal even before that.
PC: Yeah, but we're really seeing how dark this world gets. I think there's--obviously it's kind of a contorted way of showing this, but I think there is actually an implicit reverence and love for animals in their roles in these movies. So because something horrifying happens to this dog, everything changes. Because something bad happens to a cat, everything changes. And so, I think he's using them as proxies for people, because the really terrible stuff that happens to people happens later. So I'm thinking for example of an author I really like, Murakami, a Japanese writer. He's a very open cat lover. In one of his novels horrifying things happen to cats, and in another horrible things happen to big cats. And you know this is a person who has such love for these animals, and so you know just as much as you're horrified by this, he's horrified by this episode in the plot of the book he's writing. I think there's something to that, that he knows precisely how much it hurts because he loves these animals, and so he knows this cuts to the heart for him. So I wonder--you could absolutely be right. I don't feel that this is necessarily a shock and awe movie.
PCMom: No.
PC: It makes sense that we're so assaulted by it, because it's so horrifying and upsetting, that it makes sense to experience that as, "Why is that director doing that to us? Why is he making us watch this? This is horrible." I think he knows that. I would assume he knows that. I think he's horrified by it too. So one interesting thing is, I heard Colin Farrell interviewed about this movie, and he said something like, the interviewer asked, "What is the meaning of this movie? What does the director say about that?" and Colin Farrell was like, "You know, I don't know that he knows. He doesn't have an answer for that question."
PCMom: So where do the questions come from? He doesn't have an answer to the question, but why are those the questions in his brain?
PC: Yeah I don't know. He seems like someone who must be really horrified by the structure of modern society and how that affects relationships. Because really his movie is about those things taken to monstrous extremes. To your point, like comparing The Lobster to tindr or okcupid. This is an extreme example of it. Is there anything else you wanted to add about this movie? Any other impressions you had?
PCMom: [Pause] The whole thing of the hotel staff doing these various tableaus to explain to people why it was better to be in a couple. It was almost like people had lost, like the whole nature of relationships had become so sterile. People didn't even have a sense of human affection and caring being the basis of a relationship. It was like, "Oh, she'll be safer," or "Oh, he won't choke to death over dinner." It was very bereft of emotion and emotional intimacy or connection.
PC: Yeah. It's a tragedy in a lot of ways.
PCMom: He's Greek, isn't he? And so what was with the guerrilla group's parents playing Spanish flamenco guitar? What was that about?
PC: It was hysterical, that's what it was! It was much-needed comic relief. I thought it was very funny, I liked it.
PCMom: She's clearly French, and her parents are like Spanish or Portuguese?
PCMom Reassesses Her Rating
PC: So are you holding fast to that .25 rating?
PCMom: I'll give it a .5. I'll give it a 1. But I would not recommend it--I cannot think of a single person I would recommend to go see it without some stern warning.
PC: Yes, avoid the dog scene.
PCMom: Avoid the Rachel Weisz scene getting her eyes taken out.
PC: So I wasn't sure if she actually had her eyes removed or if she was just blinded.
PCMom: I don't know. Clearly they surgically took away her sight.
PC: Even that, so I certainly didn't find that funny, but there was something so skillfully diabolical about that. I was kind of awed by that. Because my first assumption was they're going to correct her version, and then they won't have that in common, so that's that. But blinding her is so much more effective because it is a test of his love, because he could get his vision corrected too and then they'd still have that in common. Now we're both better off anyway. It's not that we both love each other, we just both have perfect vision.
PCMom: The other thing that is so odd, is the characteristics that people chose to have in common with each other. Nosebleeds? And what was the characteristic that made the hotel manager couple similar?
PC: I don't know, I imagine it was like, singing?
PCMom: [Mimicking dancing]
PC: Well and I also found myself wondering if you get to choose your own trait? Because one woman was like, "I have a beautiful smile." And I was like, "Well that's self-aggrandizing"... or "I like your confidence." Why aren't people choosing traits that are really really common? Like, chronic nosebleeds--not that common.
PCMom: And they're traits that have nothing to do with whether you'll be emotionally attached to someone. There's nothing to do with emotional attachment.
PC: Well also that, yes.
{Heart}
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