Dark Satire 'The Lobster' Starring Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz Making Waves at Cannes

Imagine a world where society has decreed that single people, or those who have lost their mates, need to find someone during a hotel "dating game" or be turned into an animal of their choice. That is the premise of Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos' movie, "The Lobster," a dark satire currently making waves at the Cannes film festival.

Colin Farrell stars as David, an architect whose wife has left him. His character decides upon arriving at the luxury hotel that if he failed to find a mate within the 45-day deadline, he will become a lobster—because he likes the sea, and it lives 100 years and has blue blood. The hotel manager lauds him for his choice as most of the guests choose to become dogs.

The premise is absurd. American actor John Reilly, another of the hotel guests in the movie, said he loved the script precisely because it was absurd.

Farrell said at first he wasn't really sure what the movie was about, but he was thrilled the film was made in his native Ireland. "I have no clue what it's about except a sense of the deep loneliness that permeates (modern life)."

Rachel Weisz, who plays the woman Farrell's character eventually gets together with, though not directly through the hotel dating game, said she felt the film was deeply romantic despite its almost ridiculous trappings.

"We really just want to ask the questions and make people consider how we organize our ways of life and, you know, if all the rules that we follow make sense, should we rebel against some, should we make new ones, all these kinds of questions," Lanthimos said.

This is Lanthimos' first film in English, his first with major international stars and his first Cannes-competition contender.

The movie is not clear on its setting – whether it's in the future or in the present – and what science is used to turn people into animals. Although much of the movie is filmed in Ireland, the setting could be anywhere. Farrell, at the start, is the epitome of Everyman.

There are those who conform, trying to find similar people that they could pair with, and there are those who don't. In this movie, the non-conformists are the "loners," those who have broken away from the enforced monogamy and live in celibate packs in the nearby woods. And there are those who hunt and bag loners (a heartless Angeliki Papouli) to earn extra days of human existence.

At some point, David seems to have reached a union of convenience with the heartless woman, until she tests his commitment to heartlessness by asking him to kill Bob, the sweet shepherd dog that used to be his brother.

David does find some measure of romance, when he joins the outcasts in the woods, in the person of Rachel Weisz, a short-sighted loner. The problem is, there cannot be love between loners, as decreed by their leader Lea Seydoux.