If you are familiar with the previous films of Yorgos Lanthimos, The Lobster will most likely seem like fair game. More dead than deadpan has ever been, wickedly dark and with heaps of social satire, The Lobster demonstrates what is most-loved about the Greek auteur. However, if The Lobster happens to be your first Lanthimosian adventure, then you may come out the other end somewhat bemused and slightly shaken.

Set in a near future where single people aren’t tolerated by society, the film follows Dave (Colin Farrell), a short sighted and socially awkward man, whose wife has recently left him for someone else. This forces him to go to a hotel, run by the scarily fantastic Olivia Colman (someone give this woman an Oscar already), in which guests have 45 days to find a partner. Should they fail to do so they get transformed into an animal of their choice, with Dave choosing a lobster should this day come.

As you can tell from the plot description, the film is pretty abstract; yet Lanthimos manages to direct his films in a way that perfectly compliments his quirky contexts. The script, despite being his and frequent collaborator Efthimis Filippou’s Anglophonic debut, is ultimately subversive, yet sharp and witty, having the audience in fits of laughter on many occasions. The dialogue is also extremely economical; Lanthimos never relies upon it too heavily, preferring to use the cinematic rather than the expositional to convey meaning. If speech is used, you always feel it serves a purpose; to make you laugh, to make you think, or simply to throw you off course.

The director, as with previous films Alps and Dogtooth, once again shows his unique talent of creating worlds that are frightfully similar to ours and yet utterly different. While the film is in English, it does have a European sensibility about it. If the film were in Lanthimos’ native Greek or frankly any European language it wouldn’t make a difference, making the film eerily difficult to place in any kind of reality, despite the characters within the film being recognisably human. Combine this with an international cast and still, almost patient cinematography from Thimios Bakatakis, Lanthimos creates a perfect context in which his biting satire can breathe.

If there’s anything to critise about The Lobster it’s that it’s not as profound as it likes to think it is. Unlike Dogtooth, Lanthimos’ Oscar-nominated, nightmarish look at modern parenting, which reveals more layers once you delve deeper, The Lobster’s intentions are extremely clear cut. What it has to say about a post-romance, swipe left, swipe right oriented society is undoubtedly relevant and interesting, yet the film does leave little room for ambiguity.

However, you never feel that The Lobster is first and foremost a ‘message’-based film. While it does have something to say about the complexities of dating and relationships, the main joy of the film centres on its weirdness. It’s another chance to experience two hours in the alternate universe that is the head of Yorgos Lanthimos. As far as I’m concerned, that's always worth the entrance price.