Triangle of Sadness

Writer-Director Ruben Ostlund fancies himself as a filmmaker specializing in social satires. As the title hints at, his heavy-handed TRIANGLE OF SADNESS is broken up into three chapters. What connects the three are a fashion modeling pair, Carl (Harris Dickson) and Yaya (Charlbi Dean; in her final role).

The conceited couple end up on a luxury cruise ship which includes a contingent of Russian oligarchs. It's captained by an erratic commander in Woody Harrelson, leaving much of the crew discipline up to Paula (Vicki Berlin). As in FORCE MAJEURE and THE SQUARE, Ostlund is fond of having a big set piece at the center: the avalanche in FORCE, the ape man at the fundraiser in SQUARE. In TRIANGLE OF SADNESS it's a Captain's Dinner set during a storm. Anybody who's seen Marco Ferrari's LA GRAND BOUFFE or Monty Python's MEANING OF LIFE will be prepared for the aftermath of the combo of fine dining and sea-sickness that follows. And, then things get even worse for Carl, Yaya and the rest of the guests and crew.

Ostlund has never been a subtle filmmaker, but, even by his standards, TRIANGLE OF SADNESS hits its targets too directly and on point from the very start with an over-extended prologue showing how superficial the fashion world is - stop the presses! Ostlund is too talented for the movie to be totally bereft of humor, but, he beats his targets over the head so firmly that whatever insights or laughs get drowned out in the process.

The final act, the aftermath of the cruise ship's calamities, has a certain effectiveness even if it's too drawn out. Dolly De Leon as Abigail, a cleaning woman, comes to the fore in this section and gives the movie a genuine spark or two. The rest of the cast do what they can with the the script (Ostland's first primarily in the English language - maybe the nuances got lost in the translation). Zlatko Buric is particularly effective as a boorish Russian passenger. Production-wise, TRIANGLE is well made with good use of the locations, including the main setting on the Cristina O yacht; But in the end, it's the failure of Ostlund to have anything to say -- let alone with wit and wisdom - that sinks this production.

Pretty much like "The Square", Östlund delivers again so much in between the lines of social criticism, while also not shying away from pretty much on the nose satire in its most vulgar form. While being creative and very anti-consumerism with the message here, this is a movie that might be to "critical" of the high society lifestyle, to reap rewards for the cleverly written satire it really is. It has a clear structure but also many flaws, that won't spoil the enjoyment though.

This movie is unfortunately 40mins to long and has an ending that is not satisfying in my personal opinion, but that's a matter of taste.

P. S. - Don't eat during act 2 and thank me later.

This is why I used to go to theaters - to watch thought provoking entertaining movies. While there may be little to no blood - this movie is brutal. No stone is left unturned as you move through society's expectations of class, money and sexual politics. This is not light breezy fun and is sure to turn your stomach just watching it at times. This is a return to an original script not based on some comic book or sequel of some long drawn out franchise. I mean you could watch another DC/Marvel movie but is there a point to that anymore? This is in my humble opinion the best movie of 2022 (so far).

Having adored Ruben's first film and admired his second, I had high hopes for Triangle of Sadness.

Unfortunately, whilst there were some strong moments (mostly in the trailer) and I enjoyed many of the performances, it felt overly long and rather self-satisfied.

Lampooning the lives of the hyper rich, the ugliness, the greed, should come from a place of neutrality and I feel, MUCH more challenging and nuanced than this rather basic farce full of cheap stereotypes.

At no point did I feel that Ruben and the writers felt for a second that they were also part of an elite, as a creation of a privileged bunch of Western European creatives, I'm surprised there's been not much to question this.

Was there any introspection as to the hypocrisy of their position? The cinematic equivalent of a western teenager wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt to their private school.

Not surprisingly the disconnected Cannes audience ate it up. Awarding it, celebrating it and then popping back to their yachts in the harbour to demand cold champagne and hot massages from "the staff".

First of all, there is no earthly reason this movie needs to be 2 hours and 27 minutes. None. 147 minutes of beating home with sledgehammer efficiency, the prevalence of socio-economic injustice, the perverse obsession with the superficial over the substantial, and gender inequity. The exposing and mocking of which, I am 100% supportive! But the execution is so lazy and repetitive that, even though the core message is admirable, this can hardly be considered enjoyable, much less enlightening.

Now, I love a slow burn. I like long films. And I definitely like films that have something to say. But in all honesty, this film could have been cut by 1/3rd and spared the audience a lot of pain. Every scene is too long, starting from the very first one. There certainly is a message of gender-reversed exploitation to be made, but how long does it really need to take? And the awkwardness of Carl and Yaya's evening is excruciatingly drawn out, exacerbated by the dull and fractional dialogue (though this could be mitigated by the characters being dull and fractional themselves). Even the aftermath of the Captain's Dinner is gratuitously long and boring (I won't even bring in 'disgusting', because that frankly isn't even the issue.) It must be meant for an audience unfamiliar with subtlety in film, but there's no way that target audience has the attention span for such a drawn out film.

Only the 3rd chapter (which deep down somewhere, I knew *had* to be coming, though I'd hoped credits would role at the end of Chapter 2) was even remotely interesting. Two hours of laborious setup to reveal what we already knew in the first place, and had been very obviously foreshadowed from the first moments on the yacht. Take a bit of The Menu and add some Lord of the Flies, but the total is less than the sum of its parts.