Writer/Director Ruben Östlund penned this 2022 satirical black comedy as a way to address the social divide between those who have and those who have not. His point here was to show that our social separation is man-made and that circumstances can change, and the have-nots can become the haves thanks to life skills acquired by having to do things for themselves rather than be waited on all their lives. This, of course, is an obvious target that is easy to satirize, so if he was going to go that direction, he needed everything to be spot on. In some ways it is, but there are quite a few instances that really sink this film and make it basically a lesser film than what Bong Joon Ho was doing just a couple of years before with Parasite.
We open with an interview with some male models, questioned about how their commodity is their bodies and that they exist in an industry where women are paid significantly more than men. This is an observation that some may not have known about, as the reverse is usually the case in any other occupation. We cut away from this to some women on a fashion walkway, selling the very image of glamour and beauty, a commodity these women take full advantage of.
This theme will come back much later in the film when a female model, Yaya (Charlbi Dean), finds herself in a position where that asset, basically the only one that she has, is of no use in her current situation. By the end of this film, she will find that things can change in a second, and a person’s values come down to what they can provide during any given circumstance; value is something that we give ourselves based on the current social structure.
From this opening scene, we cut to a dinner sequence between Yaya and her boyfriend Carl (Harris Dickinson). This scene is filled to the brim with petty bickering about gender roles, money, and what he wants to get out of the relationship as opposed to what she is looking for. He feels that she will come to love him eventually, but she is only interested in what he can do for her social media, seeking only to one day become a trophy wife. The two of them are invited on board a luxury superyacht for a cruise in exchange for its promotion on social media.
This leads into the kind of pep meeting many of us have been involved in in some way or another, where Paula (Vicki Berlin) is reminding the rest of the staff onboard the yacht that their sole purpose is to do whatever the guests ask, no matter what the request is. The customer is always right, the guests pay the tab, and it doesn’t matter whatsoever what they want, they get it. This kind of rampant entitlement will prove the downfall of the ship, though, when one of the guests demands the staff drop what they are doing and go for a swim. Instead of ensuring the safety of the food being prepared, the staff is forced to abandon everything and swim. Compounding all of this is the captain of the yacht, Thomas Smith (Woody Harrelson), who is so drunk that he refuses to listen to Paula and his staff and schedules the Captain’s dinner on a day that the weather will be very stormy. These things combine to make a very memorable, and messy, dinner where everyone is either puking, having explosive diarrhea, or both at the same time.
If we didn’t get the message Östlund was trying to make by this point, the shipwreck and final hour of the movie will pound that home with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. There is little nuance to this script, just intense jabs at social hierarchy. A sudden attack by pirates leads to a handful of people, both from the wealthy guests and the crew, being shipwrecked on an island. The wealthy, who apparently have never had to do anything for themselves in their lives, are next to worthless when it comes to surviving. But so, apparently, is the crew, none of whom has ever had to go camping or knows how to even start a fire.
Then, floating ashore in an escape boat, is Abigail (Dolly de Leon), the least of all. Abigail was in charge of the toilets on the yacht, the lowest of the low on the totem pole of the ship’s hierarchy. But Abigail knows how to fish, how to start a campfire, how to survive. This makes her the most valuable of all the castaways. She makes this perfectly clear to all the rest, proclaiming herself the new captain and taking over. With this newfound authority, she is able to take the bulk of the food and water, and even induce sexual favors from Carl, angering Yaya who finds that her only assets get her nowhere on the island. My, how the tables have turned.
While this film has a great deal to say about our self-made senses of worth, including a heavy dose of socialism v. communism v. capitalism, it does so in the broadest of terms, steering clear of any ounce of subtlety. That works fine in the case of a social satire, but it doesn’t excel the way it could have had it been treated with a little more finesse instead of throwing famous quotes at us to get a laugh. The film doesn’t give us any characters to root for, either; they are all terrible people, including those in the most humble of positions. The best part of the film is also the most disgusting part and requires you to have a strong stomach to watch. If you do, there are some really good laughs to have here.
Ultimately, though, this film is trying too hard to score a touchdown and it fumbles the ball in the end zone. The final reveal is unexpected, but also a little head-scratching if you think about it too hard. It had so much potential, yet it just can’t land it in such a way as to be satisfying. There is a way to make these observations and still have likable characters, even if they sometimes do bad things. Bong Joon Ho did it with Parasite, making many of the same observations about class as this film does, but though we don’t like what Ki-woo and his family are doing in the end, we still like them as individuals. Triangle of Sadness never gets us there with any of these characters and so, while we grasp the unfairness of the social ladder, we never care about any of these characters on it.
Academy Award Nominations:
Best Picture: Erik Hemmendorff and Philippe Bober
Best Director: Ruben Östlund
Best Original Screenplay: Ruben Östlund
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Release Date: October 28, 2022
Running Time: 147 Minutes
Rated R
Starring: Harris Dickinson, Charlbi Dean, Dolly de Leon, Zlatko Burić, Iris Berben, Vicki Berlin, Henrik Dorsin, Jean-Christophe Folly, Amanda Walker, Oliver Ford Davies, Sunnyi Melles, and Woody Harrelson
Directed by: Ruben Östlund
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