On "The Lobster" by Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou ****

It's been a while since I read a screenplay. For a brief time, I read quite a few. Really, the story of my reading of screenplays is also the story of technology and me.

Back before I was an older teen, the only way to see a movie was in the theater or on television--what was available--and the latter was something I spent a lot of time watching. In my later teen years, we had a VCR, and rentals became something we could use to see specific films we wanted to that we had missed; more often, though, I simply recorded movies I would have missed on TV.

As a young man, once I was out on my own, I got rid of the television. The only way to see a film then was in the theater, and so it was that I started reading screenplays. At this time, this usually meant borrowing the screenplay or buying it--and this in turn also limited the selection of films I had access to.

With the Internet, things changed a bit. Drew's Script-o-rama offered a relatively wide selection of screenplays, so if I missed a film in the theater, quite often I could read the screenplay online. Or I could "read" a classic film. Once I had a computer that could play DVDs (around 2006), however, my need to read a film dropped precipitously. But from 1999 to 2006, reading was the way I came to know many films.

I didn't manage to see The Lobster in the theater, or catch it streaming when it was available on Netflix, and video stores don't exist much anymore, and so . . . here I am, reading again, a film I'd wanted to see.

In a lot of ways, I'm glad not to have seen the movie. My tolerance for violence or sex on screen is not what it once was, and judging by the screenplay, this film would likely have a lot of the latter.

But the screenplay itself touches on many themes that intrigued me about the film. It's a strange blend of dark comedy, fantasy, and thriller. David's wife dumps him, and so he is forced to go to a hotel for single people, where, if they do not manage to find a partner within a specified period, they are turned into an animal. Some run away and become loners, who live in hiding, trying to avoid being shot and turned into animals.

The plot is obviously a comment on the way in which society pigeonholes people into particular roles, as well as the general untidiness that singleness represents. It left me with much to think about--the way we transform ourselves to try to "fit" with someone; the difficulty that there is in being truly loving, let alone finding love; and the selfishness that we all exhibit in our search. David, at first sympathetic, is a character who by the midway point of the screenplay, I had come to dislike. Indeed, I can't say I much cared for any of the characters by the end.

I'm sure that seeing the film my reaction might be much different. Acting can really embue a role with compassion beyond what's in the written word. But as a mind exercise and as a truly unique piece of writing, the screenplay really works. It can be read here at Scriptfest.