Dirctor Rueben Ostlund  Countries  United States  Sweden  United Kingdom  Germany  France  Turkey  Denmark  Greece  Switzerland  Mexico  Rating 15  2022  Comedy Drama   English language

Triangle of Sadness is a thoroughly entertaining, delightfully wicked fable about structures of power that are only one shipwreck away from going belly up. A perfect parable for an age of excess. It’s unforgettable – which is a bit of a euphemism: there are truly great scenes and some parts which might not be so good.

This is a thought provoking film and remember it’s a comedy. While there may be little to no blood – it is brutal. No stone is left unturned as you move through society’s expectations of class, money and sexual politics. If you liked Monty Python and believe there need to be changes to the World order, this is for you. The film’s satire is not subtle, but it is riotously entertaining: lampooning the wealthy’s almost childlike reliance on service workers for example.

There are touches of strange optimism, for example in the micro-relationship between the billionaire and the yacht employee; their first interaction is completely hostile, but they’re later seen palling around, laughing and even shaving each other. Östlund, as mordant as his jokes can be, seems fundamentally to believe people are complex and often likeable in spite of their ideological flaws. For Östlund, subtlety is overrated. Triangle of Sadness shows us why he has a point. It’s a spectacular demolition of modern life, a disruptor movie full of ideas and nuance, as violent in its way as a Pieter Bruegel painting.

Triangle of Sadness disobeys the prime directive of Hollywood movies: It has no protagonist for the audience to identify with.  Nearly everyone in Östlund’s world is both exploited and exploiting; no one is innocent. Yet there’s something bracingly right, even crowd-pleasing, about the plot’s final twist. This satire is seaworthy.