Triangle of Sadness (2022)

Directed by Ruben Östlund

Relax your triangle of sadness.

A young and beautiful influencer couple is gifted a luxury cruise hosting a small number of the world’s one percent. There is a good mix of abhorrent rich people stereotypes to choose from, including a russian “shit seller” and british war profiteers. Between photoshoots and steamy sex, our couple is drawn into the world of the super wealthy and all the shenanigans they can afford (spoilers: but can they afford everything? wink). 

Triangle of Sadness starts off strong with our main character, a male model named Carl (Harris Dickinson) auditioning with a designer for his next gig, where he’s deliberately treated like cattle. Then he goes to a fashion show with a laughably fake environmental message and finally to dinner with his girlfriend Yaya (Charlbi Dean), also a model and influencer. They fight about why Carl is expected to pay the bill, which turns into a semi-plausible discussion about gender roles and expectations. 

It is here, where the overarching themes of the movie are introduced, and quite effectively so. We’re told that we’ll be taken on a journey into the abyss - the great divide between rich and poor, man and woman, capitalism and socialism. We will sail these treacherous waters and come out battered, but wiser. Unfortunately this promise will not be kept, but there’s a lot of movie ahead of us.

There is one brilliant scene, however, which made me wish that Triangle of Sadness was a short film consisting of this scene alone.

During the shit and vomit deluge everyone knows from the trailers, the self-proclaimed socialist alcoholic captain of the ship (Woody Harrelson) and the “shit seller” capitalist (Zlatko Burić) coop up on the bridge, drunkenly debating the merits of the respective ideologies. Being from the former Soviet Union Mr. Shit (no, I didn’t bother learning his name) is not just familiar with socialism as a concept, but actually saw it become reality and turn into fascism, due to the greed of the Soviet government. He turned to capitalsm, because it’s at least honest about its exploitation of the working class to profit the few.

The captain, being American, knows every facet of capitalism and is (understandably) sick of it - he wants a better world. But, as he doesn’t know, how to change it, he turns to a simplified romanticized version of socialism (the kind you see on Twitter a lot) as the main ideology that can deliver us from capitalism. He admits however that he’s a “shit socialist”, because he directly profits from the world’s ultra-rich by captaining a cruise yacht. No resolution to this problem is found, (correctly) indicating that there is no easy (Twitter) solution to late-stage capitalism.

This scene is funny and unsettling, weirdly lit, beautifully acted and intercut with the aforementioned ultra-rich shitting themselves.

Done. The End.

…

Unfortunately not.

The tentative beginnings of interesting social commentary deteriorate consistently throughout the movie. What started out fine, turns into boring obviousness by the beginning of the third act. Indeed the movie would’ve been better with the entirety of the third act scrubbed from existence. The projectile vomiting and subsequent shitavaganza at the captain’s dinner is exactly that. There is no actual joke, except bodily fluids in the vicinity of rich people, which seems to be enough for some (the director most and foremost).

The cast is fine for the most part, true highlights being Woody Harrelson, Iris Berben as partially mute Therese and Dolly de Leon, as toilet manager turned captain Abigail. The sets are supposed to be lavish, but lack creativity and flair, making the luxury yacht look like a discount cruise ship. The cinematography and soundtrack are quite uninspired, as well. 

Ruben Östlund definitely had something to say about the state of our society, but opted for pointing at the bad stuff and covering it with fluids of all kinds, without ever engaging with the reasons those problems exist in the first place. After this journey, I am certainly battered, mostly by boredom, but none the wiser, except for the simple fact that rich people don’t have it easy in cinemas this year.