Triangle of Sadness

Shallow protagonists are stranded in deep waters in Swedish director Ruben Östlund’s latest social satire. This year’s winner of the Palme d’Or, Cannes’ top prize, Triangle of Sadness is Östlund’s second film to receive that prestigious honor following The Square in 2017. Prior to that, Force Majeure, Östlund’s earlier and best film of the three, won the top prize in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard sidebar in 2014. Not to besmirch the Cannes juries, but it seems to me that as Östlund’s ridicule grows more barbed, his aim grows less acute. His targets have become broader, ripe for pricking, while his projectiles never fully penetrate the surfaces.

Triangle of Sadness is structured in three acts, each highlighting the transactional nature of our social interactions. Part one introduces the film’s central protagonists, Carl (Dickinson) and Yaya (Dean), two top models and romantic partners. Initially, we observe Carl, who was once the face of a successful perfume advertising campaign but is now undergoing the derogation of an open cattle call for some new product. Later, following dinner in a restaurant, Yaya scrolls through her phone while waiting for Carl to pick up the check. For some reason this night, Carl wonders why he is always the one who is expected to pay even though Yaya is the one who earns more money. The conversation takes a nominal jab at the social order of gender and its financial underpinnings but never lands any solid blows.

The second act takes place aboard a luxury yacht, where Yaya has been invited to cruise among the super-rich as a reward for all her online followers. Carl accompanies her, but he functions mostly as a sidekick who is handy to have around in order to snap tantalizing photos for her to upload. Other members of this ship of fools include the likes of British industrialists (Davies and Walker) who manufacture hand grenades and a Russian fertilizer oligarch who declares himself the king of shit (Burić). Making the whole vessel tick are the staff and crew who are instructed to serve but not mingle with the passengers. The movie plays like an extended version of the TV series Below Deck until the night of the Captain’s Dinner, which happens to coincide with rocky seas that toss the yacht to and fro, along with the passengers’ stomachs. Vomit and excrement flood the cabins and decks, while the drunk captain (an ill-used Harrelson) and the Russian oligarch commandeer the P.A. to read from Karl Marx. It’s all outrageously disgusting but once the toilets explode the situation notches up to a full-throttled poop-deck lollapalooza. The gags in this part of the satire are visceral rather than cerebral.

Granted, these bloated upper-crusters make easy targets, and drowning in one’s own shit is a facile metaphor. Part three moves the setting to a remote island. Here the power dynamics are flipped on their head and only Abigail (De Leon), one of the yacht’s housekeepers, knows how to survive. Everything is transactional and beauty is also a currency. Instead of skipping lightly over rough seas, Triangle of Sadness bobs to shore like a floating sarcophagus.