The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2015)
This is one of those films that opens with a wonderful, inventive, well executed setup and then ... keeps going. Keeps going in a good way, in that it stays inventive and always finds new directions to go in; but keeps going in a bad way in that it doesn't deliver on the fantastic promise of its setup. I admire and hate that choice, simultaneously. It's still a good film, maybe very good even, but I wish it had committed to telling the story it started to tell rather than just sort of riffing on other cool ideas that are maybe no less interesting but not nearly as satisfying. With the loners, for example, it made sense to me, thematically, that their rules were as orthodox as those in coupled society — mirroring the way modern opposition political parties have to oppose absolutely everything the other stands for. Narratively, though, that choice is a bit too schematic, for my tastes. The film's soundtrack is a bit annoying at times, but the cinematography is always lovely, setting just the right tone for this dystopian story.
Grade: B
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