Triangle of Sadness (2022) review

Since it won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and is nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, I had high hopes going in to Triangle of Sadness, and I can somewhat understand what about it has gotten it this level of acclaim, but not exactly in a good way. It’s very artistic and political, but its politics never go any deeper than the average 50+ year old Academy voter will be able to digest.

As someone who is unfamiliar with director Ruben Östlund’s filmography, Triangle of Sadness feels like it is probably the perfect encapsulation of him as an artist. I feel like I get the gist of every single movie he ever has or ever will make from the strengths and weaknesses of Triangle of Sadness. The movie suffers from the all too common problem of viewing and attempting to comment on class issues from a wealthy point of view and not really having the wherewithal to really say something about it other than “well… it’s something that exists!” and stopping there and patting itself on its back for coming to the table with the most surface level social observations imaginable. There’s nothing to really interpret from the movie because nearly everything that could be taken from it is just right there on the surface, which sometimes is to its benefit but more often than not is to its detriment.

The film is structured in 3 chapters (a TRIANGLE if you will 🤯) and unfortunately the way the film is structured is its greatest detriment. So, lets talk about all three corners of this triangle, shall we??

The first act, titled “Carl and Yaya” is mostly a slog, making the first 40 or so minutes of the film feel tedious as opposed to intriguing or gripping. It doesn’t excel in a dramatic or comedic capacity, so it comes across like… blahhhh? I have to imagine that the couple, on paper, Carl, a male model and Yaya, an Instagram influencer, are intentionally caricature-ish in nature, so spending a third of the movie with them doesn’t add anything to their characters or the overall theme aside from re-iterating the same tired, cliched done-to-fucking-death social commentary about gender norms, shallow online influencers. It’s not funny, it’s not poignant, and it’s not dramatic in any satisfying capacity. The only time I chuckled was when they were arguing in the hotel elevator and Carl literally pulled the elevator door open so he could keep arguing with Yaya. But that was it.

I’ll be charitable towards the writers of this film and suggest that maybe the intent of this section is not to be commenting on what exactly they’re saying, but the vapidness of the conversations is itself the commentary. Perhaps the ultimate point of Act 1 is to highlight two people who think that they are more intelligent and introspective than they really are, who fill their time with conversations and observations that have been said time and time again. If that is the case, is Östlund intentionally attempting to put forward a get-out-of-criticism-free card by saying “Aha! you cannot say that the commentary in Triangle of Sadness is played out because that’s part of the commentary! It’s self aware!” And I feel like that is a cop-out and an excuse to not have anything smarter or more engaging to say.

I get it, it’s sometimes hard to write commentary into your story without it being abundantly and awkwardly clear that that’s what you’re trying to do, but Lord almighty, the way Ruben Östlund goes about it in Act 1 is the least creative way you could do it. Having your characters just flat out say shit like “isn’t it weird how we slip into these gender roles when society tells us to even though we base our relationship on viewing each other equally??” is such a lazy way to express themes, especially in comparison to how it’s done in Act 2.

Act 2, titled “The Yacht” is an improvement in probably every way. It’s such a night and day comparison that it feels like it was executed by a completely different crew. Östlund takes a more show-don’t-tell approach to the class structure taking place on the luxury yacht. It’s still right in the forefront and lacking any sort of subtly, but it’s communicated through directing and editing instead of just saying what the commentary is supposed to be. Here, the movie leans more into absurdism than Act 1, which on one hand is jarring but on the other hand is a welcome change of pace.

The dynamics are presented visually in a thought provoking way, showing the class commentary in a compelling —albeit obvious— way. At first, the dynamic appears to be between the guests on the luxury cruise and the crew, who are told that they are not allowed to say no to the passengers for any reason, which leads to some amusing exchanges between them later on. However, as the crew is celebrating at the notion of a pay raise, we hard cut to the next class below them on the pyramid and the ones who really keep the boat afloat; the maintenance people, janitors, and cleaning crew who don’t get the fancy uniforms or slick haircuts a pay raise. Again, that hard cut to the lower class is obvious, but it is a much more effective way of communicating themes than what was shown in Act 1.

Not only is the directing and editing a lot more purposeful in Act 2, but the writing is much sharper, funnier and more engaging all around. Since the overall tone and style is more absurd and silly, I am a lot quicker to buy into the idea that conversations between The Captain and Dimitry is to stroke their egos in a way that I was not with the conversations between Carl and Yaya in Act 1. The situation at hand is allows for a more satirical reading of their pointless discussion of Marxism and communism; they are essentially huffing their own farts over the yacht intercom as the workers below the Captain are forced to deal with every passenger on the yacht getting comically seasick. The captain fancies himself a Marxist (not a communist, he insists loudly into the intercom), but he is quick to ignore his fellow working class the second he gets the chance to fraternize with a member of the upper-class. It’s a great bit of writing, so good and so much better than any other piece of commentary that Triangle of Sadness has to offer that I almost have to assume that I am interpreting it in a way that was not intended.

Needless to say, the seasickness is hilarious and disgusting and probably the best executed vomiting I’ve ever seen in a movie. The grenade bit was funny too. I saw that on the Criterion Collection cover art and was waiting for a grenade to show up and it did not disappoint.

Act 3, “The Island” is solid, but a step down from the quality of Act 2 while managing to keep in tone with the absurdity, making Act 1 feel even more out of place than it already did. Where Act 3 thrives is that it is where the commentary comes to a head, but that pacing…

GOD it’s just way too long of a chapter to be as effective as you want it to be. They so clearly wanted this distinct three chapter/triangle structure to that they went with it without any regard for how it might harm the overall end product.

After the yacht gets hijacked by pirates, the few survivors are stranded on an island and forced to work together for survival, where the toilet cleaning lady named Abigail, the lowest of the low on the yacht’s totem pole, takes charge and ends up running their little “Lord of the Flies” island society because she is the most competent and has skills that actually matter in a life or death situation. Again, obvious… but the tone and overall presentation makes the very obvious social commentary work just well for me.

Carl and Yaya were mostly out of the picture in Act 2, but their story gets brought back around as a bookend for the story. Here, the conversations about gender roles somewhat gets reincorporated when Carl basically becomes Abigail’s sex slave, a reversal of typical hierarchal gender roles, but not really in a way that makes Act 1 feel retroactively satisfying, like I’ll have a different outlook on those conversations they had in the restaurant on a second watch. Again, that interpretation of the dynamic with Abigail is something that I don’t know if that is what was intended by the creators.

The length of the movie is probably the biggest problem. With the type of comedic political satire with an ensemble cast that I think is implied with this movie, you would think that it’s characters are meant to be caricatures, like what we see in something like Glass Onion or even The Menu, but the length of each chapter, particularly 1 and 3 imply a level of character development being given to them that is unwarranted. In “The Island” in particular, there is such an implied sense of being supposed to feel warmly about these characters that we’re seeing that it kind of breaks what it should be doing.

The ending is kinda neat. I like that the ending presents two options for our characters and they are presented as being equally morbid for Abigail. I think that the implication that she kills Yaya to cover up that the island is actually a tropical resort from the rest of the survivors so she can continue to hold onto that morsel of power that she has had for the first time in her life is awesome, and it’s equally disturbing to think of her giving up that shred of dignity and authority that she has for herself and going back to that sense of normality with the rest of the survivors.

I like it when stories are told in an unconventional way, I hate to come across like I think that every movie needs to function in a particular way in order to be good, but when something that deliberately makes a choice to be a bit unorthodox in its structure, its hard not to wonder how much stronger it could be if it had a shortened and more straightforward structure. It never justified its structure, making itself come across more pretentious than intelligent.

I’ll shut up and end my review with the immortal words of Peter Griffin: “it insists upon itself, Lois…”