The Lobster · written by Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou · 2015

David compliments Nosebleed Woman’s Best Friend, but her blunt remarks about his hair leave him walking behind her.

Scene 46 of 123 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two

David
Nosebleed Woman’S Best Friend

Act oneAct two

Begins 37 min into a 1:28 film

The story so farBefore scene 46

After his wife leaves him, David has 45 days to find a partner at a hotel or become an animal; he escapes, falls for a shortsighted loner, and must decide whether to surrender his sight so they can stay together.

Scenes 1–15
David moves from his broken home into the hotel, where couplehood is imposed as the norm.
Scenes 16–24
He must find a partner before the 45-day limit turns him into an animal.
Scene 25
David loads a tranquilliser gun and joins the hotel’s hunt, entering its violent courtship system.
Just before
Scene 43
Limping Man admits he is faking the nosebleeds so he can escape with Nosebleed Woman; he says goodbye and stains David’s shirt with blood.
Scene 44
The Hotel Manager formalizes Limping Man and Nosebleed Woman as a couple and warns that staff may assign them children if they fight.
Scene 45
A child pitches himself as a replacement for couples’ problems, but threatens to wish death on anyone who does not choose him.
Scene 46
This scene

46INT. HOTEL CORRIDOR - AFTERNOON

Nosebleed Woman’s Best Friend and David are walking back to their rooms, side by side. David looks at her, notices her figure, the way she walks, her hands, her necklace, her hair. David’s voice grows softer. His tone changes.

DAVID

You have really nice hair.

NOSEBLEED WOMAN’S BEST FRIEND

I know. Look.

Nosebleed Woman’s Best Friend flicks her head to show David how smoothly her hair moves.

DAVID

How do you like mine?

NOSEBLEED WOMAN’S BEST FRIEND

Well, I think you have quite dry

hair. It’s also quite obvious

you’ll be bald in a few years.

DAVID

There are ways that you can get

your hair back. You can get hair

transplants nowadays.

NOSEBLEED WOMAN’S BEST FRIEND

They are rarely successful. You can

always tell when someone has had a

hair transplant. Nice hair is not

something you can get, it’s

something you’re born with. And

something that needs lifelong care.

Her strictness on the hair issue ends their conversation and David can’t muster the courage to have another try. Disappointed, he now walks behind her and not next to her.