When David checks in to the hotel at the beginning of “The Lobster,” he’s asked questions that range from the fairly practical (“Are you allergic to any foods?”) to the personal (“Sexual preference?”). The questions are meant to help integrate him into daily hotel life. However, they are not nearly as complex as the questions Lanthimos was thinking about when he wrote “The Lobster” with Efthymis Filippou. In an interview with the Washington Post, Lanthimos talked about where the idea for the film came from, explaining, “We wanted to do something about romantic relationships and how single people are treated within society. The pressure that is on them in order to be with someone and … the pressure that they put on themselves to be with someone.”
This exploration of romantic relationships is meant to highlight a fairly universal experience. “All of us have been through relationships; there have been periods of time when we’ve been single. It’s something that everyone experiences,” said Lanthimos. The film’s goal was to take this ubiquitous experience and ask difficult questions about it. Lanthimos told the Washington Post, “It’s a matter of making that observation [about romantic relationships] and then start to ask questions about it: Why is it like that? And why do we feel that? And why are we organized this way? Isn’t there any other way? How is it possible to feel free within that? Is there true love and how can we identify it? How can we keep it and maintain it?”
Obviously, these questions are complex questions, and even Lanthimos admitted that he didn’t have any answers to them. “That’s why we’re making the film, to ask those questions,” he said. “I think it’s important to question some things we take as granted.”