Colin Farrell can’t catch a break, it seems. Fresh off his stint scouring the back allies of Los Angeles and dealing with alcoholism in HBO’s True Detective season 2, the Irish actor is going to be whisked into a dystopian near-future for Yorgos Lanthimos’ bizarre love story, The Lobster.
Channeling themes from George Orwell’s seminal 1984, Lanthimos’s (Dogtooth) latest imagines a society in which being single is illegal, leading community members to cordon singletons into a complex where they must find a compatible and hopefully significant other within 45 days or be turned into an animal of their choosing. Well, we did say it was bizarre.
Farrell is on board to play David in this surrealist tale, who falls head over heels for Rachel Weisz’s character. However, complications arise when it is revealed that Weisz’s unnamed character hails from a society where monogamy is strictly forbidden, and therein blossoms a forbidden romance. With a cast list that also includes the likes of Olivia Colman and Léa Seydoux, The Lobster has garnered early praise through showings on the festival circuit – chiefly Cannes and TIFF.
Olivia Colman, Léa Seydoux, Ben Whishaw, John C. Reilly, and Michael Smiley will round out the cast when The Lobster makes its debut across the UK and Ireland on October 16. It’s understood that Alchemy Pictures will distribute the film across the States, though there is no official word of a release date at this time.
THE LOBSTER is a love story set in the near future where single people, according to the rules of The City, are arrested and transferred to The Hotel. There they are obliged to find a matching mate in 45 days. If they fail, they are transformed into an animal of their choosing and released into The Woods. A desperate Man escapes from The Hotel to The Woods where The Loners live and falls in love, although it is against their rules.