The Lobster is the greatest romantic comedy I have ever seen. Now it’s not a romantic comedy in the same sense that Mama Mia or Crazy Rich Asians would be, with a lighthearted tune about finding love in a hopeless place, showered in sprays of springtime flowers and a dash of the coastal breeze. The Lobster is anything but that. Whereas traditional romantic comedies feature over-the-top emotional outburst, good and bad, The Lobster is deadpan and stiff. Romantic comedies’ set design encompasses bright colors to match the bright character dispositions. The Lobster’s color pallet is nonexistent and dull, best described as “corporate office chic.” Romantic comedies use love and affection, usually signified by the finale kiss between the two protagonists to sell the point. The Lobster uses violence – maiming, murder, mutilation, to create the same desired bond. But the Lobster addresses the same underlying tension inherent to romantic movies – what and how much is each person willing to give up for their significant other?
In the Lobster, a relationship is not defined by love, that beautiful amalgam that could launch a thousand ships with a simple, tender embrace. Instead, it is based off a singular connection, a requirement for the masses, a quite legal one as we come to find out later on. But first, we are introduced to the hotel and its sacrosanct rule accepted by all potential guests – find a partner by the end of your stay or be turned into an animal of your choosing. It becomes apparent why all of the guests need an extra incentive to find love, they’re all hopeless. They speak with robotic precision in single-answer affirmatives, never expounding on their beliefs or sharing a moment of emotional vulnerability. That’s not to say that conversations never flow throughout the halls, they do, but in the same sense a fart wafts through a drafty hall. So how do they go about finding love without knowing how to communicate? Through superficial, physical communities. This is what people would normally refer to as “sexual attraction,” but within the Lobster’s universe, it’s about the quirks, as John, a man with a limp, expresses when he fancies a girl with a similar limp but she’s whisked away before his eyes.
John, humbled by this theoretical heartbreak, understood this banal truth and took matters into his own hands. At the communal pool, he sees a woman with a chronic nosebleed condition and starts chattering her up in the few seconds she takes while swimming her laps. Nothing about the conversation would indicate any sort of flirting or playful banter typically associated with chatting someone up. It’s the personification of attempting to fit a king-sized mattress onto a twin frame, but John has his mind set. As soon as she pushes off and takes her lap, John repeatedly slams his face into the pool deck, the dull, wet sounds of flesh on concrete echoing through the pool hall. Upon her return she faces John once again, only he has a steady stream of blood pouring from a single nostril, imitating her own condition. He explains that he also has a particular nose bleed syndrome and she visibly swoons, a rare show of emotion in the hotel love bubble.
John, while his methods unorthodox and his actions fairly scummy, quite represents the ultimate path towards a healthy, functioning relationship that all young lovebirds alike dream about. He sacrificed a bit of himself to be more like his partner. That’s eventually what’s going to happen at some point of any good relationship, it just happens, there’s no stopping it. Think about it, how many of you have dated a guy or girl and suddenly you were wearing clothes that fit their style more than yours did, or maybe you listen to that has since become your favorite of all time and you were introduced to it by the one you truly love. You care and nurture them and they care and nurture you. You’re their biggest fan, and of course you want to be more like your idol. It’s disgusting, and one of the best things in the world. You probably wouldn’t break your nose unprovoked, but for the sake of love and ensuring the stability of the relationship, I’m willing to bet a couple people would force violence on themselves.
David, John’s friend, goes a different route, thinking this method as completely insane, not because of the method per se but more in the unforgivable act that he falsified a condition to create a bond based off false pretenses. He believes in his own method, to find love through commonality, the natural way. He eventually does, or at least he thinks he does, when he runs into a woman he conversed with earlier, both remarking about the horrible inconvenience that came from a suicide survivor, lying on the ground screaming in incredible pain following her descent from her third story window. They believed that since they had this in common, they would be a right fit together, their hollow, callous disposition towards human suffering bringing them together. Only they came to the same conclusion with different paths. He has a more empty, cynical view of humanity so he chooses not to engage, thinking they are not worth the time, whereas she was more of the ilk to want all other humans dead for the various injustices they are capable, as shown when she killed his dog after a white lie. What might seem like an obvious sign of like-mindedness proved to be a folly, because people with different philosophies in life could eventually come to agree with one another, as a Muslim, Jewish, and Christian would equally agree that murder is wrong, in most cases at least. Would David emulate John’s disposition and adopt the standout characteristic of their significant other, or would he separate from the relationship? He separated, literally running into the night.
David, was unwilling to change a part of him to inherit that of his lover. Albeit this is in a more exaggerated scenario, but it does exemplify the harsh questions required to maintain a healthy partnership. Usually it’s more along the lines of dedicating the same amount of time to a relationship, expressing gratitude at the appropriate moments, or agreeing on the virtues of marriage, extracurricular activities and all. A more flexible type of person, such as John, would gladly take the self-imprisonment and flexibility for the sake of love, but David stood firm for his core belief, and so his story continues. David’s actions are indicative of someone who is unwilling to settle for something less than what he is comfortable with, the same crux that Rachel McAdams faced in the Notebook, leaving her banker boyfriend/husband in the wind when Ryan Gosling comes stumbling in with his letters. She realized she was not genuinely fulfilled by the scope of the relationship and decided to act. Socially unacceptable in her family’s eyes, but it is what she felt was right for her. David just needed to find his Ryan Gosling.
The cliched idiom says “Love is blind,” but would you blind yourself to see if that statement rings true? What would you do for love?
Sloppy Critic 