Triangle of Sadness: A Review - Savage and Insightful Social Satire
/****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
My Recommendation: SEE IT. A fantastic, original and scathing takedown of modern society.
Triangle of Sadness, written and directed by Ruben Ostlund, is one of the best films of last year and one of the more misunderstood films in recent history.
The movie, which is a black comedy/social satire, was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards, but was tepidly received by critics and audiences alike as evidenced by its 71% critical score and 68% audience score at Rotten Tomatoes.
The film premiered in the U.S. in October and generated almost no buzz. In my circles in Hollywood, I heard no one talk about it at all, be it positively or negatively. It seemed the movie, which is in the English language but is produced by a cavalcade of foreign production companies from England, France, Germany, Sweden and Denmark among many others, would just come and go and be forgotten.
But then the film was nominated for a bunch of Oscars, which is why I figured I should watch it in order to be up to date prior to the Academy Awards. Thankfully the film is now streaming on Hulu which makes it more accessible.
I watched the film knowing nothing about it prior and came away from my screening believing it to be unquestionably one of the very best of the year, and certainly the most original.
The film is broken into three parts. The first is titled “Carl and Yaya” and it introduces us to models/social media influencers Carl and Yaya, two beautiful people navigating the business of marketing their bodies as well as their intimate relationship.
This opening section is absolutely mesmerizing and could be a stand-alone movie all its own. Carl, played by Harris Dickinson, and Yaya, played by Charlbi Dean, are so compelling and captivating that you are instantaneously drawn into their very topical, painfully politically correct, gender-sensitive, Gen Z drama.
Swedish writer/director Ostlund masterfully shoots this opening section with a stunning level of both subtlety and craftsmanship. There’s one shot of a conversation in a car that is as good as anything seen in a movie in years.
The second section of the film, titled “The Yacht”, chronicles Carl and Yaya and a bunch of other incredibly wealthy people as they vacation on a giant yacht. This section sets up the power dynamics between the unconscionably rich and the working people in the service industry at their beck and call.
This part of the movie is, to put it mildly, batshit crazy, as it devolves into one of the more absurd and extreme bits of physical comedy you’ll ever witness. That said, it is also incredibly insightful in terms of presenting and then propelling the film’s philosophical narrative.
The third section, titled “The Island”, turns the film on its head (again I’m being vague to avoid spoilers) as it lays bare the insidious hunger for power that lies at the heart of humanity.
After watching the film, I did something I rarely, if ever, do…I went and read some reviews of it. The reviews, which were all mostly dismissive, all said the same thing…that the film was nothing more than a rather trite criticism of American capitalism. The fact that politically-correct, limousine liberals writing for various high falutin, establishment, corporate media entities like the New York Times and such, would disapprove of a scathing Euro takedown of American capitalism should come as no surprise. But what did surprise me was that I didn’t see the film as a trite criticism of capitalism.
Yes, the film does criticize capitalism, but it also, and with maybe even more ferocity and fervor, criticizes the criticisms of capitalism. For example, at one point in the film there is a drunken debate between a wealthy capitalist and the socialist captain of the yacht. The two of them regurgitate famous quotes at one another to make their argument because neither is able to think for themselves or have an original thought. The wealthy capitalist is a repugnant pig and former citizen of the Soviet Union, and the socialist sea captain is a lazy drunkard who literally has been unable to leave his cabin to perform his duties due to his inebriation.
That the capitalist admits he sells “shit” and the socialist sea captain makes money being too drunk to pilot a giant yacht for the rich, sums up perfectly the scathing social satire of Triangle of Sadness. That critics are so venal, vapid and vacuous that they are unable to see past the obvious façade of “anti-capitalism” in this film in order to see the much deeper and more important point of it all is both damning and alarming. Or maybe critics actually did see the film’s deeper meaning and were angry that their woke worldview was so easily and entertainingly disemboweled. Who knows?
Regardless of misguided critic’s opinions, Triangle of Sadness is one of those glorious films that rattles around your brain for days after seeing it. The compromises the characters make in order to survive and/or thrive and to above all else deceive themselves, is an extraordinary thing to watch.
Ruben Ostlund’s direction is simply stunning. The opening section features numerous scenarios that are so exquisitely conjured and executed as to be amazing. For example, the modeling audition that Carl attends is both hysterically funny and unconscionably depressing for its accuracy and incisiveness.
In the second section, Ostlund does something so subtle and so clever that I’ve been ruminating on it for weeks now. During a chaotic sequence, which I won’t reveal to avoid spoilers, Ostlund introduces, almost out of nowhere, the sound of a baby crying. This baby and its parents are not featured characters and are little more than extras in the movie at best, but the sound of the baby crying elicits in the viewer a deep psychological and emotional reaction that is totally instinctual. This crying baby amidst the comedy chaos is like a vicious kick in the gut, and it leaves you shaken even if you aren’t sure why.
The third section is the laying bare of human nature and power dynamics and an escalation of the film’s critique of capitalism and criticisms of capitalism. That stereotypes regarding gender politics and economics are eviscerated in this section only makes it all the more delicious.
The cast of Triangle of Sadness all do exemplary work. Harris Dickinson and Charlbi Dean as Carl and Yaya are utterly fantastic. Dickinson in particular is able to walk a perilous tightrope to perfection. Dean, who in the most tragic of circumstances actually died last August before the film was released, is a magnetic screen presence and an absolute natural.
Other actors, like Zlatko Buric as the wealthy businessman, and Woody Harrelson as the drunken sea captain, and Dolly De Leon as the mysterious Abigail, all do solid work in their roles.
The bottom-line regarding Triangle of Sadness is that it takes no prisoners in its attack on the political, social and economic spectrum. Whether socialist or capitalist, man or woman, liberal or conservative, you’ll find yourselves in the crosshairs of this movie, and you’ll have no viable counter-argument as the film is aggressively astute and allergic to sentimentality.
If you can “stomach” it, I highly recommend Triangle of Sadness, as it is extremely well-made and extraordinarily insightful. This is the kind of movie that cinema desperately needs right now, and it was a joy to discover it.
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