Triange of Sadness

 

The central characters in Swedish director Ruben Östlund's Triangle of Sadness are fashion model couple Carl and Yaya (Harris Dickson and Charlbi Dean, respectively) who take turns being insecure and insensitive in all of their photogenic self-regard.

In this widely celebrated film, we follow the couple through a gender-role meltdown at a Michelin restaurant, a gastrically disastrous cruise for the soulless super-rich that Yaya won as a social media influencer, and onto an island where the fortunes of the haves and have nots are reversed.

Carl and Yaya, whose only real values appear to be extrinsic, are tossed between warring classes, indulged and exploited by one another and the entitled, and ultimately, it appears, devoured by greed and circumstance.

It sounds bleak, but it's riotously funny, a pitch-black comedy of political and social upheaval, where none are worthy, but some are more unworthy than others.

The film also stars Woody Harrelson as the drunken, Marxist captain of a $250 million yacht, who despises the people to whom he is charged to give safe passage. He forms an interesting, and hilarious, friendship with a Russian oligarch (Zlatko Buric) who made his wealth peddling shit (fertilizer).

Not coincidentally they all find themselves at the mercy of head toilet cleaner Abigail (Dolly de Leon), who wields power with familiar ruthless self-interest.

Östlund's Triangle of Sadness is most certainly not for every taste, the extended scene of explosive seasickness might force some audience members out of the room, and it is not coy about its messaging, offering a wide variety of villains from which to choose. In that way, it is terribly refreshing.