The Lobster

David is escorted to a hotel after his wife leaves him for another man. The hotel manager reveals that single people have 45 days to find a partner or they will be transformed into an animal of their choice (the dog accompanying David is his brother Bob). David is set on becoming a lobster, should he fail. David makes the acquaintance of Robert, a man with a lisp, and John, a man with a limp. Guests are fixated on finding a mate with whom they share superficial traits such as minor ailments, which they believe to be the key to compatibility.

The hotel has many rules and rituals: masturbation is banned, but sexual stimulation by the hotel maid is mandatory, and guests attend dances and watch propaganda extolling the advantages of partnership. Residents can extend their deadline by hunting and tranquilizing the single people who live in the forest; each captured "loner" earns them one day. On the way to a hunt, a woman with a fondness for butter biscuits offers David sexual favours, which he declines. She tells him that if she fails to find a mate, she will kill herself by jumping from a hotel window.

John wins the affections of a woman with constant nosebleeds by purposely smashing his nose in secret. They move to the couples' section to begin a month-long trial partnership. David later decides to court a notoriously cruel woman who has tranquilized more loners than anyone else. Their initial conversation is accompanied by the screams of the biscuit-loving woman, who has injured herself by jumping from a first floor window. David pretends to enjoy the woman's suffering to gain the heartless woman's interest. He later joins her in a hot tub where she feigns choking on an olive to test him. Noticing that he makes no attempt to help her, she decides that they are a match, and the two are shifted to the couples' suite. David wakes up one morning and finds she has killed his brother. As David tearfully mourns him, she concludes that their relationship is a lie and attempts to drag him to the hotel manager to have him punished, turned into the "animal that no one wants to be". However, he escapes and, with the help of a sympathetic maid (who is later revealed to be a mole working for the loners), tranquilizes his partner and transforms her into an unspecified animal.

David escapes the hotel and joins the loners in the woods. In contrast to the hotel, they forbid any kind of romance, which is punishable by mutilation. David, who is short-sighted, begins a secret relationship with a woman who is also short-sighted. They develop a gestural language they use to communicate. They are taken on covert missions to the nearby city, where their cover requires them to appear as husband and wife, which they secretly enjoy.

The loners launch a raid to sabotage the hotel. David tells the woman with nosebleeds that John has been faking his. Other loners hold the hotel manager and her husband at gunpoint, tricking him into shooting his wife to save himself, but the gun is not loaded. They leave the couple to face each other.

The leader of the loners obtains David's journal and discovers his plan to escape with the short-sighted woman. The leader and the maid take the woman to the city, ostensibly to have an operation to cure her short-sightedness, but instead has her blinded. The woman attempts to stab the leader, but the leader uses the maid as a human shield and pretends to die when the woman stabs the maid to death. David and the woman try to find something else that they have in common, to no avail. One morning, David overpowers the leader, leaving her tied up in an open grave to be eaten alive by wild dogs. He and the blind woman escape to the city and stop at a restaurant. David goes to the restroom and hesitantly prepares to blind himself with a steak knife.

Principal photography began on 24 March 2014, and concluded on 9 May 2014.[11] Filming took place in Dublin, Ireland, which represents "The City" in the film, and also at locations in and around County Kerry, including Sneem, Dromore Woods and Kenmare.[12][13][14] The hotel used was the Parknasilla Resort and Spa hotel, near Sneem.[15]

In May 2014, it was announced that Sony Pictures Releasing acquired the distribution rights for Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Scandinavia, Russia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America.[20] A film still featuring Farrell, Whishaw, and Reilly was released around the same time.[21] The film's posters were designed by Vasilis Marmatakis, with the Colin Farrell one sheet version considered by professional poster designer Adrian Curry to be the 2nd best poster of the 2010s.[1]

In May 2015, Alchemy acquired United States distribution rights; however, due to the company's financial struggles at the time, A24 acquired the US rights instead.[22][23] Originally scheduled for an 11 March 2016 release, it was rescheduled to 13 May 2016.[24][25]

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