Östlund's divisive yet Festival darling satire Triangle of Sadness is at once hilarious, confounding, inconsistent, and inspiring. He tells a story that is compelling but also goes off track quite a bit. He centres characters that are hard to care about but still hold our attention. It is like it both works and doesn't work at the same time. Regardless it certainly is an experience.
Triangle of Sadness falls into three very distinguishable acts which rely on each other but don't connect well. The first follows a couple who are both stunningly gorgeous (they are models and influencers) and yet wholly average. We follow them as they discuss and debate the value of their relationship and how their connections to each other are woven. Then we go on a luxury cruise with them where they become secondary, or perhaps stand ins for us as we observe the obscenely rich and those serving them. Then there is a third act but I don't want to spoil it so I won't outline it. But only in the last few moments of the film does Östlund remember where he started and start to try to pull the strings of this thing all together in a nice little bow.
In each act the film takes a sledge hammer to its point. We are bombarded with symbolism, the dialogue pretty much tells us exactly what we are to know, and it is all extremely over the top. But this is satire and it is damn funny. Triangle of Sadness often slides into Farrelly Brothers territory with its toilet humour. The film feels designed to make us uncomfortable, even from the first moments. And that's okay, that's a choice, but I would often get frustrated with the film's lack of subtly or obviousness but I did appreciate that it kept throwing curveballs at us which helped mitigate some of the predictability of the piece.
Östlund kept making interesting points amongst his slapstick. His comments may not have been subtle but they were certainly fascinating. Yet I'm still struggling with his ambiguous ending. He chooses to cut to black before we know exactly how things will be resolved, leaving room for interpretation I guess. But that's not my problem with it. Normally I appreciate that. It is instead how he seems to redeem those who feel the least redeemable in the message of the movie while condemning those the move seems to uplift. So is his ending just entirely nihilist, a cynical joke that he can sit back and laugh at from his place of privilege? Or is he siding with those he's just chosen to ridicule like some sort of ultimate twist (which would be sort of gross TBH). Or is he trying to make a comment in some way on the seeing the humanity in all of us, even those corrupted. If it's the latter he doesn't really show us the receipts.
His ending felt to me like he was trying to have his cake and eat it too, which felt a bit like cheating. But despite all of that the film, which is, as I said, quite funny, and whose plot, while meandering and disconnected, remained engaging throughout the rather long runtime, still fascinated me. The film was a lot of things to me and that was okay.
Triangle of Sadness
Starring: Harris Dickinson, Charlbi Dean, Woody Harrelson, Dolly de Leon, Zlatko Burić
Writer/Director: Ruben Östlund
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