The Lobster Ending, Explained (2024)

Yorgos Lanthimos is known for his unconventional storytelling. The Lobster, his first feature in the English language, allowed the Greek filmmaker to reach a much broader international audience. The 2015 surreal dark comedy presents a world in which love is mandatory, and people who don’t find a match are turned into animals. The protagonist’s journey ends on an ambiguous note that leaves the viewers with more questions than answers.

The film stars Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz, and Olivia Colman, John C. Reilly, and Léa Seydoux play supporting roles. The Lobster offers a commentary on several aspects of human behavior and relationships. It touches on topics including social pressure, conformity, loneliness, isolation, rebellion, and the nature of rules. Its satirical style presents a world that seems absurd and irrational, while also making it plausible enough for the audience to understand that this absurdity is real to the characters. Its conclusion may not feel like the proper ending for a traditional story, but The Lobster is anything but traditional, and in the world Lanthimos presents, this ending makes sense.

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What Is The Lobster About?

The Lobster is set in a dystopian near-future society where being single is prohibited. Those who are single are sent to a hotel where they get 45 days to find a romantic partner, and if they don’t, they get turned into an animal of their choosing. The story follows David (Colin Farrell), whose wife just left him for another man. David goes to the hotel, along with his brother, who had been turned into a dog. If he fails to find a partner during his stay, he decides that he wants to be turned into a lobster. The guests in the hotel tend to choose partners who they share superficial traits with. At the hotel, David and the other guests join the mandatory activities designed by the hotel to help people find their match, including hunting loners, single people who reject society’s norms and live in the woods, with tranquilizer guns in order to extend their stay at the hotel and get more time to find a partner.

As the days go by and David finds himself without a match, he attempts to have a relationship with a cruel woman who seemingly has no emotions. He pretends not to care about other people and enjoy their suffering, and she decides that they are compatible. After spending some time in a couples’ suite, David finds out that the woman has killed his brother, and is incredibly upset. She finds him grieving and discovers that their relationship had been based on a lie, so she tries to turn him in to the hotel management to turn him into “an animal no one wants to be” as a punishment. David manages to get away with the help of an undercover loner posing as a maid, and she transforms her partner into an undisclosed animal.

David escapes the hotel and joins the loners in the woods, who also have their own strict set of rules, romance not being allowed under any circumstance. David, being short-sighted, meets an unnamed Short-Sighted Woman (Rachel Weisz), and with that common trait, they begin a secret relationship and develop a real connection. The pair is sent to the city on a few missions, where they have to pretend to be a married couple, something they secretly enjoy. As they begin planning their escape, one of the leaders of the loners discovers David’s plan. As a punishment, they completely blind the Short-Sighted Woman.

How Does The Lobster End?

David and the Short-Sighted Woman, who is now blind, try to find something else they have in common, but are unable to. They escape the loners and prepare to blend into normal society as a couple. However, due to societal norms, matches have to share one defining characteristic, which was fine in David’s case since he and the woman he loves were both short-sighted. But now that his partner has been blinded, David’s only choice is to blind himself. David goes to the bathroom to blind himself with a steak knife. He is ready to do so but hesitates a few times. As the woman waits at the table, the screen fades to black.

The first and second acts of the film establish the world, its rules, and show the protagonist breaking away from these rules. However, the ending never shows whether David blinds himself or not. Rather than a resolution, this ending is philosophical and open to interpretation. The Lobster is not a story about a dystopian world. It is a story that uses this dystopian world as a way to present David’s dilemma and invite the audience to wonder what they would do in his situation. In a regular society, David would have other options, but the movie doesn’t want the viewers to consider other options. Yorgos Lanthimos carefully crafts this bizarre dystopian society where characters only have one of two options, find love or be turned into an animal.

Due to its unique atmosphere,The Lobster is considered one of the best sci-fi comedy movies of all time. The main question asked throughout the film is whether David could find love or not. During the course of the film, he does, but in order to keep his relationship going and fit into the very specific society he lives in, his only real choice is to hurt himself. Unlike traditional endings in storytelling, philosophical endings invite the audience to think for themselves and wonder what happened. The last shot of the film is the now-blind woman waiting for David to return. It is a long enough shot to build tension and create doubts that he may not return, and the audience may even attempt to find or hear David in the background, either running away or screaming in pain. But this does not happen. Instead, David, just like the audience, has to make a choice and decide his fate. In the end, The Lobster lets the viewer choose the protagonist's fate in their own heads, which adds an extra layer to the movie’s theme and philosophy.

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