The Lobster, by Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, makes it onto my watch list not because it was highly praised or because it won many awards, but because most of the people who have watched it describes it as one of the weirdest films they’ve seen. One of the most surprising things about this is that for such a small and quirky film, it has some serious star power with the most famous names being Collin Farrell, Rachel Weisz and Léa Seydoux.

Farrell is David, a man who checks into a hotel for an extended stay after his wife leaves him. He lives in a world that operates according to some decidedly odd rules and the audience is constantly left in confusion as we try to figure them out. He is given 45 days in the hotel to pair up with another woman, as he has said that he is heterosexual. He can extend his stay by capturing so-called “loners” in the nearby forest but if his time runs out, then he will be transformed into an animal. The hotel’s manager kindly allows him to type the type the animal and praises him when he picks the lobster, commenting that most people choose dogs. Unfortunately for David, he is neither good at hunting loners nor at finding a partner and eventually flees into the forest, becoming a loner himself. Yet he soon finds that even the outcast group has weird rules of its own.

The setup is so strange and so distracting that it almost completely obscures any underlying themes that are being addressed, but there are some common elements that we can take note of. One is that this depicts a society that desperately wants people to stay together as couples, to the extent that loners are supposed to be effectively killed by being transformed into animals. The hotel manager amusingly puts this as a second chance to get a partner after being transformed. The police even stop and question people who they suspect of being loners. At the same time, people are clueless about what it takes to form a relationship. Everyone seems to think that the most important thing about building a rapport wit a partner is to have something in common, even if it’s a completely trivial one like being short-sighted. The fugitive loners represent the other extreme. Having failed to find a partner as a normal member of society, they impose a complete ban on romantic attachments and severely punish members who flout these rules.

The best part of the film is the succession of weird though not necessarily very convincing bits about this society works. For example, part of the hotel maid’s job appears to be to arouse the male guests to erection but never provide them with any relief. The reasoning is that this heightened sexual desire encourage them to find proper partners as soon as possible. Even children aren’t spared from these rules, being merely tools that are deployed to help couples stay together. The sense of absurdity is only heightened by how well this is filmed and the star power of the performers.

Unfortunately I think this is one of those films whose premise is so weird that it completely undermines any deep examination of its themes. A more conventional film would have the protagonists arrive at the conclusion that people fall in love for all kinds of reasons that don’t amount to simply sharing a single characteristic in common. The Lobster however for better or for worse goes all in with its scenario and never deviates a moment from the script. This makes it an extremely memorable film and a fascinating experience. But at the end of the day, I’m not sure that it says anything that is particularly insightful.