THE LOBSTER: Love in the Time of Anomie

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Writers: Yorgos Lanthimos, Efthymis Filippou
Cast: Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Lea Seydoux, John C. Reilly, Ben Whishaw, Jessica Barden, Ariane Labed, Angeliki Papoulia
Runtime: 119 mins.
2016

The Lobster follows protagonist David (Colin Farrell) through his stay at The Hotel, a resort with one central purpose: to help its tenants find love and stable relationships with each other. Those who fail to find a partner by the end of their stay will be turned into an animal of their choosing. Life at the resort is rigorously structured, from the No Masturbation rule, to the strict meal and dance times, to the staged presentations about the superiority of couplehood, to the daily morning routine that involves a maid grinding on the male tenants' laps until they become hard--but not a moment longer. Everything about the place is meant to maximize the romantic desire and viability of its occupants; everything except the hunting of the Loners, that is.

Every day the tenants get on a bus with tranquilizer rifles in hand and head into the woods to hunt radicals who have defected from The Hotel and chosen an aggressively single lifestyle together. If you capture a Loner, one day is added to the duration of your stay. At first David participates clumsily in the hunt, but as his time runs out his relationship with the Loners becomes more complex.

If you were to go into The Lobster expecting some sort of sci-fi thriller, you would be mistaken. If you were to go in expecting a romantic comedy of sorts, you would also be mistaken. In fact, if you were to go into this movie expecting anything in particular, there's a significant chance of you walking away feeling frustrated or unsatisfied. The Lobster is so singular in its presentation that it doesn't fit into any boxes we typically stuff movies into. The closest comparison I can draw is that it is something like an extremely perverse version of a Wes Anderson movie, but even that fails at capturing what The Lobster is up to.

CAROL: Les Be Honest

Director: Todd Haynes
Writer: Phyllis Nagy
Cast: Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Kyle Chandler, Sarah Paulson, Jake Lacy, John Magaro
Runtime: 118 mins.
2015

As far as I can tell there are two ways for people to develop empathy: through experience and through stories. For those who lead sheltered existences, sometimes life experience is not a viable option. That's why we need narrative. Stories allow for cultural growth across demographics and situations. Stories shape our worldview, especially if they're artfully constructed and have real heart behind them. As such, I can't imagine how anyone could walk away from Carol without a great deal of empathy for the LGBTQ movement unless they are trapped in a dogma that does not allow them to break free.

Carol follows the romance of two closeted women in the 1950's. Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara) is our initial POV character, a reserved young woman who floats through life acquiescing to things she doesn't have any feelings about. Over the course of the movie our perspective transfers to that of Carol Aird (Cate Blachett), an older woman going through a divorce and entering a custody battle for her daughter. Both of our main characters are stuck in relationships with basically good men who nonetheless find themselves in the role of the oppressor because of the regressive gender norms of the time. One of the many incredible traits of Carol is that it doesn't demonize anybody, not even its villain; the pressure and prominence of social forces is always kept at the forefront.