Alchemy has officially captured “The Lobster,” starring Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz, the independent distributor announced Wednesday and as previously reported by TheWrap.
Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival, the film is the first English-language effort from Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, whose 2009 film “Dogtooth” was an Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film.
The film stars Farrell as a man “whose recovery from an 11-year relationship is complicated by the fact that he lives in a society that can’t abide single people,” wrote TheWrap’s Steve Pond.
“The Lobster,” which also stars John C. Reilly and Ben Whishaw, plays out in future where a bucolic but creepy resort hotel takes guests in for 45 days, in which time they must either find true love or be turned into the animal of their choice.
Lanthimos set the stage for such alternate social realities with “Dogtooth,” about a husband and wife who keep their adult offspring in perpetual childhood within the walls of a compound.
Alchemy previously picked up another buzzy Cannes title, Gaspar Noé’s “Love,” the sexually explicit story of a love triangle among two girls and a boy.
“The Lobster” is financed by Film4, Bord Scannán na hÉireann/Irish Film Board, the BFI Film Fund, Eurimages, Greek Film Centre, CNC, the Dutch Film Fund and Canal+, and is an Irish/UK/French/Greek/Dutch production.