'The Lobster' review

Colin Farrell comedy brims with originality, wickedly weird details.

Edgy and surreal, peppered with rich deadpan absurdist moments, The Lobster, Jury Prize winner at Cannes offers a hilariously bizarre glance at contemporary mating habits.

In the near future singles check into The Hotel run by the tyrannical Olivia Colman - it's dance and interact but no masturbation with 45 days to find a genuine partner or they're transformed into an animal of their choice.

If lonely architect David (Colin Farrell) can't find a partner he wants to be a lobster. He tries the hotel dances and forays into The Woods to kill Loners but picking the heartless woman (Angelika Papoulia) was a disaster and the man with the limp (Ben Whishaw) and the man with the lisp (John C. Reilly) are only so so pals. David seeks happiness and that's his problem so it's escape into The Woods, obey the Loner's rebel Leader (Lea Seydoux) and fall in love with the previously unseen narrator Rachel Reisz which breaks the rules.

The cast are terrific, The Hotel's spot on but as it moves into The Woods it stretches itself and fumbles somewhat for ideas. Bizarre, absurdly funny, off-the-wall. This is the age of Tinder dating.

The Lobster - video review

Xan Brooks, Henry Barnes and Peter Bradshaw review Dogtooth director Yorgos Lanthimos's new satire, set in a world in which single people must couple-up or risk being turned into an animal. The Lobster, which features an ensemble cast including Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Ben Whishaw, John C Reilly and Léa Seydoux, is released in the UK on Friday 16 October.