One of the string quartet pieces that gets repeated on the soundtrack in the second movement from Beethoven's Op. 18 No. 1 in F, which according to Beethoven legend, was inspired by the crypt scene of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Those with a bit of chamber music knowledge are therefore spoiled ahead of time that David and the Short-Sighted Woman are doomed lovers, in case that wasn't already apparent given you are watching a Yorgos Lanthimos movie.
A case could be made for the interpretation of the final act in the woods. Are these 'loners' a send-up of revolutionary freedom fighters (e.g. A.O. Scott and many others) or are they a critique of the "false paradigm" of "single of loving it" (Katie Kilkenny) Either way, Lanthimos appears to be evoking the idea from Nietzchean master—slave morality in that this group is reliant on the dominant society of the city for its definition: their idea of good is constructed out of the antithesis of the what they do in the hotel and society writ large. For Nietzsche, "this inversion of values develops out of the ressentiment the weak feel toward the powerful".
Bravo to the screenwriter for the "love is blind" pun, especially as this originates in a Greek myth about Cupid.
The near-surgical precision with which Lanthimos approaches the most surreal of conceits turns out to be a double-edged sword, toeing the line between examining closed systems and being itself too much of a closed system.
— Kenji Fujishima (Slant Magazine)
An encounter occurs deep into the film’s rich but wobbly second act, which finds David fleeing the hotel and taking refuge in the nearby forest with a group of militant singles called the Loners, whose leader (a sharp Léa Seydoux) offers a sly reminder that even liberation can be a trap. Fittingly enough, it’s at this point that the film seems to box itself into a corner. The dense green overgrowth makes for a striking change of scenery, but just when they should be accelerating, the ideas begin to thin out, and the new twists that develop mostly seem to be treading water.
— Justin Chang (Los Angeles Times)
Seydoux gives a charismatic and terrifying performance, reminiscent of the “children of Marx and Coca Cola” in Jean-Luc Godard’s early work, most particularly Veronique, the heartless redheaded revolutionary in La Chinoise. The freedom Seydoux represents is heady and deadly as pure oxygen. Her ideal is Kipling’s Cat, who “walked by himself … through the wet Wild Woods, waving his wild tail, and walking by his wild lone.” But in order for freedom like that to be possible, there must be rules. Lots of rules.
— Sheila O'Malley (RogerEbert.com)
Synopsis: In a dystopian near future, single people, according to the laws of The City, are taken to The Hotel, where they are obliged to find a romantic partner in forty-five days or are transformed into animals and sent off into The Woods.