10 Brilliant Movies With A Terrible Concept

6. The Lobster

The Lobster Colin Farrell Rachel Weiz
Picturehouse Entertainment

The Concept: The Lobster's core idea is so ridiculously baffling that it's amazing people were actually paid to make this thing.

A story about a man who attends a hotel where residents must find the perfect partner within 45 days - or they'll be turned into an animal - The Lobster is next-level bonkers, and it sounded like the type of movie that'd just whack you over the head with its overly-preachy message: LONELINESS IS BAD! LONELINESS IS BAD! LONELINESS IS BAD!

The Movie: In reality, The Lobster is subtle, affecting and greatly enjoyable, a dark love story that cleverly explores courtship and societal constructs, all wrapped in a deliciously offbeat sense of humour.

One of the great things about The Lobster is that it doesn't offer just one specific point of view. It presents both loneliness and relationships as positive things (and negative things), pointing out the frequently superficial nature of contemporary romance, as well as the benefits of just living for yourself.

The result is a scarily relevant dramedy that doesn't pull any punches, and a movie that's as weird as it is weirdly moving.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!