‘The Lobster’ Trailer: Colin Farrell Must Find a Mate or He’ll Be Turned into a Lobster

Yorgos Lanthimos is responsible for such darkly satirical films as Dogtooth and Alps, but his latest might be his most heartfelt, perceptive and hilarious film yet. The trailer for The Lobster asks you to envision a world in which Colin Farrell is a mustached, lonely schlub faced with a rather alarming predicament: he has 45 days to find a mate, or he’ll be transformed into an animal — at least he gets to choose the animal.

The Lobster played a handful of film festivals last year, including Fantastic Fest, where I had a chance to see this uncanny, satirical and painfully relatable dark comedy (my full review). It’s an objectively fantastical film with undeniable emotional truth, and although the world is incredibly absurd, there’s something very honest about a place where finding a life partner is essentially a matter of establishing your validity in society — and where our desperation to avoid being single inspires some rather unfortunate compromises.

Co-starring Rachel Weisz, Lea Seydoux, Ben Whishaw, John C. Reilly and Olivia Colman, here’s the official synopsis for the film:

An unconventional love story set in a dystopian near future where single people, according to the rules of the Town, 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 in the woods.  A desperate man escapes from the Hotel to the woods where the Loners live and there he falls in love although it’s against the rules.

The Lobster hits theaters on March 11.