There is an absurdity to the modern world that is ripe for skewering. We used to build great things, now we celebrate careers of no consequence, people of no skill and statements in place of real action. That is not intended as judgment, if you’re able to get rich doing that, why shouldn’t you?
Director Ruben Ostlund knows this and takes aim at all the usual targets but also allows them the opportunity to be nuanced. The film begins focused on the relationship between a model Carl (Harris Dickinson) and an influencer Yaya (Charlbi Dean), his career is on the slide and her’s is on the up, but she still expects him to pay for everything and he still expects a woman who makes a living off appearances to genuinely love him. Charlbi, who has only recently tragically passed away, gives a natural and authentic performance in the movie. Early on Yaya explains why she wants Carl to pay, and her logic is solid even if he should run a mile. Instead, they go on a luxury yacht cruise for the rich and there are overtones he is going to propose.
The yacht and all passengers and crew expand the social commentary on class. Highlighting influencers and models is one thing, but look around at a lot of rich people. How many of them could actually work in the factories that feed their wealth? How many of them have knowledge that is actually useful? Yet here, they are so rich they are oblivious to the irony of demanding people in servitude to them to be impromptu? They have smartly recognised they are trapped in a cage of superficiality and yearn for real human interaction, but if they actually experienced it, they wouldn’t know what to do.
There is clever Jenga stacking here, the plot foregrounds the absurdity of things to come so well that as everything escalates it doesn’t beggar belief until in retrospect. The vulgarity of these scenes is relished by the filmmakers and reminds of the old Mel Brooks advice, “If you’re going to go up to the bell – ring it.”
Ruben makes thoughtful films that run deep but here he seems to be letting his hair down in his English language debut. He still has something to say but he’s not subtle here and ‘Triangle Of Sadness’ seems to relish its dark sense of humour rather than focus on the sad ways we can let each other down. It seems to understand its own hypocrisy too – after all, people who make movies get paid a lot to essentially make up stories. In a gloriously meta moment, Woody Harrelson, a millionaire Hollywood star, playing a drunk captain of a cruise ship for the wealthy explains “I know I’m a bad socialist”.
It's nice to see a director of such talent having the time of his life.
