THE LOBSTER

This is a difficult movie to recommend. The cast is pretty terrific, the writing is original, the camera work and directing are mostly great. But it's a fantasy with a lot of unanswered questions and a challengingly mostly unsatisfying resolution.

It's contrived, but that's the point, or the point is to make metaphors out of the contrivances to help explain the complicated confusions of relationships and loneliness.

As you may have gathered from the trailers or interviews, Colin Farrell stars as a man who has lost his wife and has entered a "hotel" at which he will be challenged to find a mate or suffer the fate of being turned into the animal of his choice.

There are a surprising number of laughs in the film, as well as insights into coupling and solitude, but there are also big holes in some of the premises the dystopian vision is based on.

All in all, as the friend I saw it with said, I'm glad I saw it but wouldn't ever want to watch it again.