The Lobster

Relationships: they're good for you, apparently. They can alleviate loneliness, encourage empathy and inspire you to be the best version of yourself.

Also, if you don't commit to sharing your life with another person, you only have 45 days before the powers that be surgically transform you into an animal. It is an animal of your choosing, though, so there's an upside.

Welcome to the world of The Lobster, the fourth feature from Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos (his first in English). The maker of the acclaimed Dogtooth, Lanthimos' style isn't so much magical realism as mundane absurdity. The surreal walks hand in hand with the banal to beguiling effect.

Dumped by his wife, sad sack David (Colin Farrell, complete with sad moustache and dadbod belly) checks into a depressingly bland hotel occupied by an array of single people who have just over a month to partner up with a compatible mate or be transformed into an animal (David's choice of animal gives the film its title - he likes the sea, and the fact that lobsters are "blue-blooded, like aristocrats").

The oh-so-polite mood at the hotel barely masks an air of desperation - people pretend to be something they're not or deny their true natures in order to make a connection.

And when it all becomes too much for David, he makes a break for the surrounding forest, which is occupied by 'loners', a clan of unattached people whose rules about individualism prove just as restrictive.

The Lobster's metaphors are strange but they're also quite straightforward, and there are times when it displays a lack of nuance. (There's the odd effective but cheap gag.)

What salvages the film is Lanthimos' complete and confident control of tone - this situation he has set up is believable and nightmarish, blackly funny and unutterably sad - and the thorough commitment of the cast.

The situations the actors depict are bizarre and the dialogue they deliver deliberately literal and awkward, and it's a big ask for Farrell, Rachel Weisz (whose narration is brilliant), John C Reilly, Léa Seydoux (a real standout as the ruthless leader of the loners) and Ben Whishaw to convey the inherent emotion while adhering to Lanthimos' approach. But all rise to the challenge of expressing the complications that arise, the compromises that are made and the sacrifices that are considered in the name of love.