The Lobster, Singles, and The Church

The Lobster, Singles, and The Church June 28, 2016

lobsterA woman swallows some food and pretends to be choking to death, finishing her thrashing about with absolute stillness. The man who is sitting next to her, fully aware of her struggle, does not move to help her. That settles it. The woman now knows that they are a match made in heaven (or somewhere), since neither of them has any apparent empathy.

This is the upside-down world that Greek auteur director Yorgos Lanthimos has created in The Lobster (2016). One of the most creative, original movies in a year of sequels, remakes, and superhero-plot-by-committee movies, The Lobster is a sharp critique of modern dating culture.

The premise of the movie is that, in a dystopian future (or alternate universe), singles have 45 days to find a spouse or they will be turned into an animal of their choice. The title comes from the main character who reveals that if he is not able to find a mate, he would choose to become a lobster, “Because lobsters live for over one hundred years, are blue-blooded like aristocrats, and stay fertile all their lives. I also like the sea very much.” Colin Farrell (who gained 40 pounds for the role) plays that main character David, a man whose wife has recently left him and who travels with his dog, who we find out is actually his brother. We watch as he seeks to find a mate at the Hotel where single people are trained/brain-washed and given opportunity to pair off. John C. Reilly, Olivia Colman, and Rachel Weisz are all excellent as part of the cast that awkwardly, and at times crudely, makes its way in this oppressive world.

The film is an allegory of sorts, and a depressing, but consistent, one at that. The viewer can’t help but think of compatibility websites like match.com where people are deemed compatible based on common interests. While there is certainly merit in people having common ground with their mates (in fact, the one ‘dating rule’ in the Bible, found in 1 Corinthians 7:39, is that both people be followers of Jesus), the reality of life, of course, is that love is much more complex than simply pairing two people with similar interests. Alain de Bottom wrote recently in an editorial in the New York Times, “Rather than some notional idea of perfect complementarity, it is the capacity to tolerate differences with generosity that is the true marker of the [compatible] person. Compatibility is an achievement of love; it must not be its precondition.”

The twist in The Lobster is that instead of being paired based upon your virtues, the compatibility is between people with similar negative traits or idiosyncrasies. In a particularly slapstick moment, a man smashes his face against a desk in order to convince the others that he gets nosebleeds just like a young woman he has met (it’s unclear whether he actually wants to be married to her or just avoid becoming an animal).

The film is funny, but melancholy, particularly when we get to the second half of the movie and meet a group of Loners illegally living as singles out in the forest. I expected these singles to be full of life and joy, everything the people living in the hotel are not. But, Lanthimos will not let us off that easily, and we’re reminded that single enclaves can be just as oppressive for singles as the general culture, with their own unspoken rules and hierarchies. The film leaves us wishing for so much better for these characters, even the smallest genuine kindness. As reviewer Sheila O’Malley writes, “If every interaction contains the possibility of monogamy as well as societal-redemption, not to mention avoiding being turned into an animal, then personal connection becomes not only impossible but irrelevant.”

This film, though maybe not by design, seems to speak especially to singles in the church, where the pressure is probably greater than in the general culture to get married. My wife and I have a friend in her early 30’s who dreads going to weddings because she knows there are going to be well-meaning Christians there who ask her, “When are you going to tie the knot?” or “Did you know that bride is younger than you?”

The Bible is actually pretty revolutionary when it comes to singleness. Up until the time of Jesus and Paul, all cultures were basically community-based rather than individually-based. People found their significance not in their individuality, but in their tribe and their family. To be unmarried was to not have a life or a future (much like the characters in The Lobster actually). Jesus changed all that by living a full, perfect life as a single man and teaching that certain people are given the capacity and honor of living as unmarried (he actually uses the word ‘free’ to describe the single life!). Paul taught that singlehood is a gift (1 Cor. 7:7) and that unmarried people aren’t without family when they are nurtured in the family of God. John the Baptist and Jeremiah the prophet are two less obvious examples of important men in biblical history who were not married and thrived as men.

Richard Foster writes in his book Freedom of Simplicity, “We do people a disservice when we fail to proclaim the single life as a Christian option. Marriage is not for everyone, and we should say so. A single person can venture into forms of simplicity that are closed to the rest of us. By word and deed the Church should encourage these faithful servants of Christ. They should never be looked down upon or viewed as somehow odd. We should do all that we can to be with those who have chosen the single life, because they need our friendship and we need their wisdom.”
Ultimately, The Lobster has a lot of good satire, but is too bleak to offer many answers for how singles and married people can live freely, in the best sense of that word, and be an encouragement to one another. I would recommend the Mike Leigh film Another Year (2010) as a window into how singles and married people can live lovingly in community.


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