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Triangle of Sadness is an absurdist dark comedy that savagely satirizes the rich
and attacks modern social media dominated society for its shallowness. The film
also has elements of gross out comedy and a few genuine moments of horror. The
title is a phrase meaning the undesirable frown lines between eyebrows which is
seen as undesirable in model culture.
This tasty international cinematic smorgasbord is a Swedish/French/German/
UK/USA co-production in English language starring an African actress that was
shot in Sweden and Greece by a Swedish director. The film received the Palme
d’Or at the Cannes film festival this past year, that festival’s highest award,
and it received two Golden Globe nominations for supporting actress in a motion
picture and best musical or comedy. It is also almost certain to appear on my
best films of the year list.
The film deals with some of the same themes as the recent
Parasite as well as Lina Wertmuller’s Swept
Away and like those films, this one reverses the usual power dynamics in society
with the poor getting even with the rich.
It was written and directed by the talented Swedish film-maker Ruben Östlund,
whose credits include Force Majeure and The Square. His films tend to be quite
long and deal with lofty themes, but Triangle of Sadness might be his most
likable and most accessible effort. Part of the reason might be that most of it
is in English.
The film stars Charlbi Dean, the South African actress who prematurely passed
away just as the film was being released at a New York City hospital of a sudden
illness at the age of 32. Besides her co-starring role in Triangle of Sadness,
the rising star had a co-starring role in the Black Lightning show. Dean does a
fine job playing Yaya, one half of a model couple with Dickinson, who are
invited on to a luxury yacht for the ultra-rich before things go awry. Her
newfound fame makes her death doubly tragic because she passed on just as she
was reaching her commercial peak with this film.
Triangle of Sadness is split into three sections. The first is basically a
comedy of manners that takes place in a restaurant and hotel (it could be part
of a British sitcom), while the second has the couple on ship with some scenes
that are reminiscent of the films of Luis Bunuel and Monty Python, and the last
part takes place on an island.
The movie focuses on, Ya Ya (Cahrlbi Dean) and Carl (Harris Dickinson) a good
looking but glib pair of gorgeous rich people that seem totally unaware of how
vapid they are. Both are fashion models, but she is also a social media taste/Instagram
influencer/taste maker. At one point she poses before a meal that she will never
eat pretending that she will eat it. She makes most of her riches modeling and
mostly does the internet posing to get free stuff. One of the free things Ya Ya
gets because of her Internet gig is a cruise on a luxury ship.
The main couple are not typical and the usual financial arrangements of the
couple are reversed. The male model makes far less money than her (one
characters says male models make a fourth of their female counterparts), and he
stays at her hotel and is basically a “kept man.” Although she has much more
money the pair frequently squabble over who will pay the expense dinner bills
and she loves to tease and test him.
Many of the best humor scenes involve Woody Harrelson in one of his better
roles. He plays a communist ship captain on the ship that the model couple are
on, and he spends much of his time debating a Russian capitalist who made a
fortune selling manure. Both of these pseudo intellectuals seemingly pull
obscure quotes out of the air and Harrelson is clearly having a good time making
the film as the audience is having watching it.
Eventually the ship crashes and the former toilet manager (who spent endless
hours cleaning up the vomit of seasick rich people) is the only one who knows
how to do anything so she becomes the queen of the island and she even turns
Carl into a sex slave. Ya Ya does not seem overly upset because she probably
just thinks of him as another piece of property anyway.
Some viewers might be put off because of the film’s 147-minute length, but this
delightfully dark film never overstays its welcome. I would rather watch a
five-hour cut of this film than most 90-minute Adam Sandler comedies. Like Tar,
another excellent ambitious long multinational film that seems short, this movie
contains some of the best scenes and most memorable characters of the year.
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