TheRetroCritic

From director Yorgos Lanthimos, The Lobster is an absurdist black comedy set in a near future where single people are forced to pair up romantically with someone within a month and a half or else they get turned into animals. Colin Farrell is a newly single man who is escorted to a strange hotel where he begins his search for a new mate. He is given a specific number of days to meet someone and this time can only be extended if he manages to hunt and kill other single people who have escaped to live in the forest as they are not welcome in society. As you can see, this isn't exactly your typical rom-com and, in fact, it's a rather grim look at dating norms and the pressures of society in general. The very dry, deadpan humour makes it a more palatable satire but the film never sugarcoats the more brutal aspects of that dystopia. People literally lose their humanity, commit suicide, mutilate each other: this is a desperate and cruel world that forces emotional connections i

Based on an absurdist play by Eugene Ionesco, it doesn't get much weirder than Rhinoceros , the 1974 film starring Zero Mostel as a man who slowly turns into a rhinoceros and Gene Wilder as his alcoholic friend who has to accept living in a world peopled with rhinos. If you went into this one expecting The Producers , then you might end up feeling slightly confused about what you've just witnessed. Rhinoceros is unapologetically surreal and abstract as characters talk about some kind of rhinoceros pandemic where people literally become rhinos until it becomes a worldwide event but you never actually see one of them. This certainly helps sell the fact that the world is going completely mad but it makes for a stagey film and some might feel almost claustrophobic watching it. It really is like sitting through an absurdist play but, since it's also directed with plenty of movement and energy by Tom O'Horgan, it's also like watching one insane whirlwind of a film.