The Lobster- is it saying that women are just terrible to each other?

I mistakenly thought that this was a scary movie, and had not watched it initially. What a funky societal critique! The tone of the characters is so interesting too- very matter of fact, not emotional. I have been thinking about it for a couple of days, and a few elements stick out. I asked myself, why did the best friend slap the girl getting married? Why was the head of the loners a woman? & Why were the most brutal characters females?

In this world, you go to a hotel to fall in love in a certain amount of days, and if you don’t, you get turned into an animal of your choosing. You can earn extra days on your stay from every loner that you hunt down in the woods. Loners are people who did not find matches, but escaped into the woods without being turned into animals. So commences the mayhem. To what ends will people go in order to find a partner and not end up alone? What weird things do we as a society think happen to people who are alone? Is this whole system just barely holding together? These are some of the questions that get answered as the story unfolds.

I can’t help but think of how the film depicts the nastiness of women towards each other. In a ridiculous scene, an engaged woman says goodbye to her best friend, who is about to be turned into an animal. She recites how true of a friend she is, and how she was always jealous of her beautiful hair. The best friend just slaps her. Is this how the filmmaker thinks that female friendships work? So much fake-ness and resentment and competitiveness.

Then, at a certain point, the narrative shifts to the loners. The head of the loners is a cold woman who doles out disfiguring punishments for any kind of canoodling among loners. At one point, a female loner asks something like, why did you have to do it to me, why not him? I feel like this is also kind of pointing to female on female aggression/competitiveness.

That character, and another female are the most brutal characters. They are cold and seem to have sworn off finding a pair in favor of winning or proving a point. I’m not sure I like what this is saying about women either.

It’s definitely a thought provoking film, and has some awesome performances. However, it’s kind of disappointing how women are being portrayed. I guess the filmmaker is trying to have us think about things in a completely different way. Perhaps we’re used to men being terrible, so it’s somewhat refreshing. I’m all for more female villains and whatnot. This seems a bit extreme though. I’m sure there is something equally cooky and nefarious that could be made up about the role of men in this whole weird mating ritual.