 Now the fact that you'll turn into an animal if you fail to fall in love with someone during your stay here is not something that should upset you or get you down. Just think as an animal you'll have a second chance to find a companion. But even then you must be careful. You need to choose a companion that is a similar type of animal to you. A wolf and a penguin can never live together, nor could a camel and a hippopotamus. That would be absurd. Think about it. It's not a rock. It's a rock and lobster. Right. Right. Shall we take a crack at this? Let's take a crack at it, at least. Let's do our best. Free roam water. Yeah. So what kind of stuff do we drink? Hey! We know you. Welcome back to Life Lessons and Film. Today we're going to be making sense of life through the lobster as best as humanly possible. As a lot. A bit of an otter film. But I think it's interesting. So it takes place in a dystopian world future. Perhaps not dissimilar from our own. Perhaps not. So this takes place in a dystopian future where being single is not allowed. No. People who are single are not allowed to live in the city. That's what we know. Imagine there's another place outside of the city. The rules where the singles are relegated to in the hopes of them finding love. If you're single, you go to a hotel in the country and you stay there for 45 days. The hope is you will find love. If you find a partner, they put you in a room for... You get two weeks in the bed and then a nice part of the hotel then you get two more weeks on the yacht. So that's how it works. And then after, if you don't find a match, you get turned into an animal of your choice. The whole time you're in a hotel, you're not allowed to do things. The rules, you're not allowed to... Lobster. Can we say that on YouTube? You can't say that. You're not allowed to be handsy with yourself. Have a flamethrower thing. No bean flicking. Yeah. No bean flicking. The hotel staff, however, titillates and teases you. And you're never allowed to actually get to the point of release. So that you crave a partner. So this is supposed to actually encourage you to find a partner. If you want to extend the time you stay there so that you don't get turned into an animal. And then are given the chance to shoot people. Loners. The singletons who made the choice to run away from the hotel and go live in the wild, in the woods near the hotel because they didn't want to get turned into animals. The more loners you shoot, the more time you get at the hotel the more time you can get to find love. So the main character who is played by... Curran Ferrell. Curran Ferrell goes to the hotel because his wife has left him. He's a singleton who cannot live in the city and he has to go find someone there. And he goes there with his brother who has been turned into a dog because he was single, a bad brother. So the story just basically follows him trying to find love and all the other people there. The way that people are matched in this dystopian world is by traits that they share. I think we had a match. Yes, I think so too. So that's why he pretends to be a sociopath. Just like a friend of his pretends that he also has nosebleeds like another woman in the hotel and that's how they are matched. Is he coming out? In this world, not just the hotel. Oh yeah, because thinking about it now it's like the whole world because then when he runs away from the hotel he finds the loners and periodically a couple of the loners will go into the city, pretend that they have couples so that they're not arrested. And so the one loner, the leader of the loners can hang out with the con visitor parents who both play classical guitar. I never really made that connection but I'm like, so that's their thing. Their connection is that. There's so much stuff to tell. I don't even know where to start. The whole trait thing, it is the bare minimum of what people need in order to be said to be compatible. Okay, you have brown eyes. Well, I have brown eyes. Let's have a go at this love thing. I would argue that a lot of people actually kind of approach dating and love that way. It's an exaggerated version so that's what dystopian movies do is they always exaggerate conditions that the world already has so you can take like the dating app thing and just kind of exaggerate it. People are kind of scrolling super quickly being like, not my type, not my type. They're like the same artists that I like. Okay, well then I'm going to swipe right because then maybe we can date. I mean, people do judge stuff on that so they're just exaggerating it to like, oh, I have a limp, I need to find someone with a limp. That's the only, then we can be compatible. If you like movies. Yeah, exactly. That's what people would put down there. Very general stuff because they're just like I like walking. So when I see parts of the movie, like even where they have their awards ceremony for people that find a suitable mate and they're all like, we're happy for you. You know, everything is so monotone in everything because everyone is so disconnected and that's kind of the whole to emphasize just how meaningless any of this connecting actually is and finding love, basically how meaningless and how non-true it actually is happening. I think the whole kind of hotel institution kind of just resembles society in a way you are penalized for being single, right? People don't take you as seriously. You don't have as much cloud. It's like a status thing, a respect thing. People see you differently if you're a relationship person. Yeah, like they take you more seriously. Single. What I like about this movie is I think some movies I think you could say they're some pretty obvious metaphors. That doesn't mean they're bad metaphors, but they're obvious metaphors. This one, it's pretty up to interpretation but that's what's fun about it is I'm like maybe they didn't actually intend for this to be a relationship and everyone else who's still single, right? They're all on the hunt. They're all every day desperately trying time is running out. Everyone feels that clock. You know, all their friends are starting to get into relationships and you're feeling that pressure and you're still single. It's awful and everyone feels that pressure so when you see your friends, they get into a relationship and they're like, yeah, we're really happy. We're clearly very suitable for each other and everyone's clapping and they're like, we're so happy for you, here's an award. But a lot of people aren't actually happy for them. Parents don't love me. The way that things are set up, we'd have socials that we meet boys from boys' schools, right? And then for Valentine's Day, we'd all go to the assembly hall. The boys from the different schools would send flowers over to the girls' school. The nuns would read out whosoever the flower was meant for. Know that the rose is coming. Sometimes you just have to wait for longer. The best rose take longer to come around. The best rose take longer to bloom. Isn't it? Yes. Super young teens, and as much as nobody's saying you've got to start dating, but society's already grooming you for the idea of you needing to find a suitor. Just because you're at girls' school, you can't be out here, lotty gagging. You've still got to get on that dating. You're separating you so you don't get distracted from boys, but you still have to be distracted by boys. Obviously it's not everybody who went to girls' school and had those kinds of experiences, but I feel like if you went to school, you had those kinds of experiences all the time. The way that this is all set up, it takes the meaning out of love. The thing that makes love special, the thing that makes you actually want to fall in love, society just the way that it pushes you into it and the way that it forces you into it and craves these kinds of... Who the devil did that to you? Who the devil? Society grooms you from a very young age that you need to get your act together and find a suitor. I do understand the value in finding a partner that people need for us to populate. By that thinking, when you have to actually have babies, this community doesn't fizzle out. So I get that, but at the same time I feel like the obsession with getting people to find each other is so incessant that we have strayed, I feel, so far from allowing things to happen organically. That's a big part of the theme is people feeling that pressure. The guy that hit the one friend, he's the first one to find a mate, is nosebleeds. Which is another thing that people a lot of times do, they will change themselves they will adopt a whole new personality or look or face or all these kinds of things values about themselves because they think that would make them more compatible with someone they would like to be with and of course inevitably a lot of times that falls apart but people don't think about that, they just like I want to be in a relationship, that's the person I have deemed that I've decided so I now have to figure out a way to seem compatible. And I feel like this movie speaks to the superficiality of that. I remember I told you about this one guy who was like, you're the perfect height for me look at us, look at us, we look good together you know what I mean? And I'm just like what height? I was just perfectly short and he was perfectly tall there is also that element of mystery to love where you're drawn to someone without really understanding why it is if you're drawn to them and then when you're in the relationship you're actually realizing oh this is why, you know? So in this whole movie that's where the leader of the loners decides to strip the woman that David falls in love with, right? Because their compatibility was that they were both short-sighted. And so she decides I'm going to blind her, takes her to a doctor and then strips her off her eyesight and so now you don't have any compatibility which she's a misery loves company type of person. Those people who are consoled only if other people are as downtrodden as they are and I will drag you into my hell and never let you win because I don't want to be lonely in my misery only why she's the leader of the loners the ultimate loner her doing that is also really a tangible platform for discussion because it's kind of like if you remove certain things with your partner that you like the same kind of movies if you're both pretty in the mainstream sense, you know what I mean? Would you still be compatible? Those are the kinds of questions so if you are in a relationship right now have a chat if you're funny you went blind, would it still work? If one of you wasn't as attractive would you still be interested? Would you stab your eyes out for them? Yeah David in the end decides he's going to gouge his eyes out or however he's going to blind himself so that they're compatible in this world that requires you to be superficially physically compatible so he decides to do that but we never see whether or not he does it. That's true I forgot that they actually leave that up so maybe he doesn't so that's kind of like to keep these compatibilities with you it's kind of like maybe how much you fight to if you start to grow apart in different ways or start to develop in different ways with your partner how much do you fight and how much do you just accept oh we've become different people and now this person changed ideologies this person has now gotten into a rabbit hole of a totally different way of thinking and now we don't feel compatible anymore how much do you join them in that or do you just say I guess they're a different person now that was the first time I saw him he was hiding behind a tree close to mine he seemed quite presentable the next day in the city he found out that I was short-sighted too there was that whole kind of love at first sight and so their relationship felt much more organic in my mind there's the chance that he could have done that because he's doing that for that special part of love the inexplicable thing that draws us to love the thing that will make you gouse your eyes out so there's that but there's your view as well that maybe he just didn't they like the rest of the movie they kind of leave it up to you to decide I feel like he probably did also the whole thing that makes me think of the loner camp makes me kind of feel like why the two main characters relationship is actually more genuine than anything else you see in the movie is because it's maybe that philosophy of you first need to be comfortable alone before you can actually be in a good relationship so all these people that are rushing these relationships just forcing it you got 45 days they're doing all these things they're trying to meet people in all kinds of ways because they have this whole resort so they play golf and try to meet people that way they do these other activities and try to meet people that way dances and they're trying all these different activities to just find someone where they have like hey you kind of find me attractive let's get married and have some kids and maybe that will kind of distract us from us actually not being that compatible let's have a baby which in the movie right they're like okay well if you're fighting throw in a kid that usually fixes things right like that's another play on the fact that a lot of people are marriages just you know I don't know the course of your relationship will be monitored closely by our staff and by me personally if you encounter any problems any tensions any arguing that you cannot resolve yourselves you will be assigned children that usually helps a lot I don't want to give up this thing now that people see us as together they see me differently now and I like them seeing me this way so I want to maintain that so let's have a kid so maybe that can kind of let's have a baby and then they'll bring us together bring us together or it'll distract us or something they both found themselves as loners accepting that that was the lifestyle they'd rather take so I kind of look at that as the the philosophy of which I feel like generally is true is like first you have to be okay with being on your own so that you get a sense of yourself who you are at your core and then you can meet someone who's in a similar situation sometimes being single is the best thing especially when you're in a bad relationship everybody in this world is in a bad relationship because they're like well it's that or I'm going to be an animal yeah yeah it's very rare that you're finding actual love yeah I think someone asked David the main character when it's like so when you know how is it he's like oh I like it I like being a loner it's really nice to be on your own there's no one tying you down you listen to music whenever you like you masturbate whenever you want go for walks whenever you like I don't miss companionship at all I just miss you because you were my one true friend are you gonna shoot me? I'm afraid so there's also a lot of rules that come with being in this loner camp you can't really talk to anyone in a 40-way there's repercussions you're not allowed to fall in love not allowed to touch yeah and so it could kind of symbolize where you think oh we should go the exact the other direction because this thing is not working but oh that isn't necessarily the solution whether it's like a system of people organizing living in a certain way versus another way but also just looking at single life versus like couplehood is that there are upsides and downsides to both it's like yeah in some ways you have more freedom being single but then in other ways you don't and then the loner leader who eventually is envious of the two loners finding love genuine love blinds the woman racial wisest character there's a lot of people that are like no I like being a loner one of their friends actually that challenges their convictions I guess on those things do you actually like being a loner or would you actually like that but you just say that because you haven't worked on yourself enough you refuse to look at why you're still a loner when he approaches the sociopath I think it was I guess and he's trying to flirt with her wow that's going on stories out they're kind of just like oh maybe another time I can't really hear you because this woman is screaming as she's dying you know like does kind of make me think of how that kind of environment of outside there's suffering and there's homelessness or there's people yelling at each other or there's accidents happening and then inside you know people are like trying to date or they're at a club or they're trying to you know talk up someone or people are just having a delightful dinner and then there's like a car crash or something and people are like oh you just kind of like switch back to like yes but my priority is meeting someone because that is the rat race I find myself in right now for me it reminded me of how society kind of forces you to distort yourself I think a lot of people have had this experience where you're in a group of people and some of them aren't the best people let's say you know one of the people they're oh hey how's it going friend and then friend is not really nice to you as nice as she usually is when you are alone maybe is mean to you even because she knows where she is the people here are cool and we can be like chummy and also because like you're not looking too good right now and like all these people I don't want to associate with you and so I need to pander to kind of behavior and then they start kind of being mean or snooty or whatever or you see that the guy that you're interested in has a certain kind of personality and so then you also adjust yourself accordingly I don't know instead of like going over and helping that person out you know you're thinking oh no but I've committed to you know I need to seem cool in front of the sociopath so I can't be worried about that person in pain especially in groups it's easier to lose yourself whoever people kind of senses the most confident one or the leader of the pack makes you think of like when my college days and apparently the year right before when I joined seemed like generally the cool people of that year were all very kind of rude and mean and bully-ish and that kind of thing and so then everyone kind of tried to do that but just didn't do it as well as the main hauncho's right then my year at least as far as it seemed like some people were saying and far as I observed the people that seemed to be whatever the coolest or the people that the others aspired to be more like were people that liked were into comedy and bits and sketches and jokes and entertaining and humor like that stuff so then everyone was trying like there were people that would come up to other people I knew in the program that we're seen as as the cool ones and they would just try and make them laugh and there was like this thing where people would come up and they would try and make this person laugh and if they did you know they'd feel like hey I made that person laugh you know it was very interesting so it's like they can switch from year to year of just like people seeing oh now these values are valued the way the world is set up is like every single time you're adapting who do I have to be today one thing that I thought about as well when you think about cancel culture I think I completely understand the reason cancel culture is so prevalent there's a lot of people in the world who really care and want equity, equality all the good stuff but for me I think this movie kind of says well yes we understand that you want society to be good but then you're orchestrating certain things like okay you can't say these words anymore you can't go here anymore these spaces have to be a certain way now with our desire to create communities of understanding and empathy where people can move freely really I think it's primarily an altruistic desire but sometimes we want it so much that we're willing just to make the biggest sacrifices and we don't really realize how badly these are impacting us for example you know there are still people living in the Amazon jungle somewhere they see a trap like an animal footprint and they touch it and they're like oh this animal is actually limping on the left side or the animal is pregnant or they're injured us orchestrating all the time it's becoming more and more intellect and we're losing senses just like that connectedness in that biology exactly so this movie I was like oh my god is this where we're going because if you're orchestrating all the time you're arresting people's development effectively so you're not having human beings anymore who are organically growing I think that's why in the movie they're also robotic a basketball weighs between 550 and 650 grams did you know that? no I didn't know that yes the weight's different for men's and women's games but that's roughly how much it weighs do you know how much of a body it weighs no but I'd like to find out because that's where people are reduced to at the end yeah you're reduced to that like you're not a person anymore we were talking before we started recording I was saying like it seems like people are taught a lot of good stuff they just forget it look at the intro to the original Arthur cartoon series one of the lyrics is everybody that you meet will have the original point of view and that's a good thing and I see each other but I mean I disagree I think when people feel that cancel culture is a new thing I think it's always been a thing I think it's just before it was the church cancelling Galileo Galileo Galileo so cancelling has always been a thing now I think it's just I mean I still think people in positions of power do cancelling as well but you have you also have people on the internet that can also cancel so I think that's why people just think it's a new thing it's more it's not as a new thing it's just that there is more of it why is there more of it because you have people in power that have been cancelling and always will cancel and have been doing so and then you have actually you can get people together a lot easier so you'd say it's more democratic cancelling so you have two types of cancelling now so just one and I think that's why it feels like there's more of it going on yeah but it's always been going on I hear a lot of people online saying there's this new thing now where you just can't like it's it's harder to express things and why I think it's not necessarily a good idea to say this is a new thing because then people would say oh well then we should like revert back to I'm like it's always been a thing yeah groups of people have always wanted their in group beliefs to be a thing and they're always kind of want to convert everyone else it's fear that causes it how do we get relieve everyone of that fear you know for people to feel comfortable just having everyone else disagree with them right because people have been programmed over generations thousands of years to feel the need to conform and fit in and feel safe that way yeah how do you break people out of that I think there's just about the same level of cancer if anything I would still argue actually that there's less canceling going on now at it only because it feels like there's more but I actually feel like people generally are freer to express themselves than than ever before 1960 or something you could get arrested for just giving a pacifist speech Eugene Debs you know as a politician in the states got arrested just for having a speech that was against the war World War one or whatever there's a lot more freedom now you can make pacifist speeches now and not get arrested but you just have more availability for people that disagree with you to point out they disagree with you that's all I think that it really is but yeah I mean that's some stuff that we thought about the lobster and also some stuff that we just I guess thought about not even really related to the lobster but we just thought about so either way let us know yeah let us know what you thought yeah you see that let us know as well comments yeah share your thoughts on our thoughts on everything that we covered here today but till next time thanks for watching though that's a wrap I'm wearing dark blue trousers and a tight cream blouse and he took my clothes off and fucked me up the arse and as he was fucking me a thug came into the kitchen and took the steak knives from the second drawer and attacked us stabbing the knives into our bellies one by one I woke up terrified