A man (Colin Farrell) whose wife leaves him checks himself into a facility resembling a hotel, where he is given 45 days to find a new life mate amongst its other inhabitants.  If he fails to do so, he will be transformed into the animal of his choice. Hence, the title.

When the story stayed in the hotel, it maintained my interest. Writer-director Yorgos Lanthrimos creates an increasing feel of dread and desperation as the guests jockey for position, and while the picture is often the blackest of the black, there is comedy to be found. 

Unfortunately, Lanthimos leaves the strange, self-contained bubble and takes us to a wider society. There, loners — individuals as zealous about being single as the government is about coupledom – hide out in the woods while the authorities enforce duos to such an extent that security personnel harass lone shoppers at the mall. Lanthimos doubles down again and again on the absurd. Eventually, the movie becomes exhausting, a chore rather than a delight.

Worse, it’s all too clever by half, and ultimately, casually cruel, to no real end. People are miserable and they suck or they are delusional Moonies.

That said, my tastes for this sort of thing are reflexively vanilla to an almost disabling degree. The critics adored it, and it cleaned up at Cannes.

Paul Rudd lost his young son in an accident and compensates by taking a 6 week caregiving course for the disabled. His first client is a plucky, wheelchair bound Brit named Trevor, who suffers from muscular dystrophy and an over-inflated sense of his own cleverness. For example, to shock Rudd, he pretends he’s choking or having a seizure, a real gut buster. Rudd later pretends he has misplaced Trevor’s lifesaving medicines, so . . . relationship established.

Both parties learn life lessons, but to better cement them, they–

A). Make love
B). Take a road trip
C). Join a white supremacist sect
D). Enter into a suicide pact

Of course the answer is B), but the other answers would have made for a better film, for those options would not have resulted in their meeting bad girl hitchhiker Selena Gomez. How do we know she is bad? She–

A). Smokes
B). Curses
C). Is a white supremacist
D). Smokes while cursing

Oh, if it had only been C).

Gloppy, lazy, hackneyed gruel.

Nick Kroll is a pretty big deal in New York City until his Google-glassish innovation goes busto and he loses all his money and all the money of his so-called friends, so he seeks solace by retreating to the icky suburbs and his childhood home in New Rochelle, NY, currently inhabited by his harried sister (Rose Byrne), her swarthy, down-to-earth home builder husband (Bobby Cannavale) and their charmless 3 year old boy.  There, Nick becomes intertwined in their lives, much like Bill Hader in The Skeleton Twins, who went home to Nyack, NY after a trauma.  Kroll discovers Cannavale is having an affair, much like Hader’s sister Kristen Wiig in The Skeleton Twins.  Coincidentally, in The Skeleton Twins, Wiig was cheating on her husband Luke Wilson, who was also a blue collar guy, just like Cannavale.

Crazily, Kroll reveals the fact of the affair to Byrne, again, like Hader to Wilson in The Skeleton Twins.  And that results in a heartfelt discussion about how Kroll ran out when their mother was dying of cancer, and the discussion is reminiscent of the recriminations and regrets of Hader and Wiig about their father, also dead by suicide.   In The Skeleton Twins.

For a few easy laughs, the town is populated by faintly ridiculous folk from high school who Kroll can look down upon.  Much like Hader in The Skeleton Twins.  And there are places that inexplicably have Christmas lights up even though it is not Christmas.  Just like the town in The Skeleton Twins.

And Kroll grows, growth which is signaled by the fact he chooses the welfare of his sister’s son over his new job.

Just like James Caan in Elf.

Torture that at its best is mildly diverting.