Do you like your romantic comedies dark and quirky? Are you up for another trip from the director of the incendiary Greek drama Dogtooth? Are Colin Farrell, Ben Whishaw and John C. Reilly three of the most under-rated actors working today? If you answered yes to any of those questions – and if you did to all three, we will get along fine – here’s a terrific treat to end off your Friday. The first photo of Farrell, Whishaw and Reilly in the upcoming comedy The Lobster is now here to savour.
The film takes place in a dystopian future where single people are arrested, forced to move into a place called “The Hotel” and have only 45 days to find a mate. If they do not find one within the allotted time, they will transform into an animal of his choosing and released into the woods. (This may be the best plot description you will ever read, so do yourself a favour and read it a few more times.) One of these men escapes from “The Hotel,” only to find love where he least expects it. Among the actors playing some of these potential matches are Rachel Weisz, Léa Seydoux, Broadchurch‘s Olivia Colman, and Greek actors Ariane Labed and Angeliki Papoulia.
The Lobster marks the English-language debut of director Yorgos Lanthimos, who already brought us the dark satire Dogtooth in 2010. Absurd romantic science-fiction comedy is not a genre that has a lot of followers, although Her and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind fit that mould well. I expect Lanthimos’s story will be a bit more bizarre than those films, just based on the lunacy of Dogtooth. The photo above, of the actors looking uncomfortable in their stiff, matching suits, gives a hint of what this bland dystopia, full of solitude and desperation, could look like.
Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions (SPWA) has picked up the film for release in many global territories, although there is no release date in North America. The Lobster is slated to wrap shooting today and is expected to hit theatres sometime in 2015.
