Triangle of Sadness (2022)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

Triangle of Sadness (2022) – R. Östlund

Every once in a while, a film comes by that, although highly regarded by others, rubs me the wrong way. With Triangle of Sadness, a satire-of-sorts about social class from Swedish director Ruben Östlund, it isn’t the film’s message that bothered me (I’m all for taking the rich down a peg and exposing the lengths others will go to in order to curry favour with them or to move up in the pecking order).  Instead, it is just too facile, obvious, and trying hard to shock or provoke. I just didn’t find the (black) comedy very funny. The film is constructed in three parts: 1) Yaya and Carl; 2) The Yacht; and 3) The Island.  The first part is an extended awkward argument about money between two models (that also ropes in gender roles). It creates some anxiety and tension, partly about their relationship and partly about “political correctness”, but it is also boring and annoying. The second part finds these two models on a luxury cruise with a lot of other boorish rich people who act in self-absorbed and insensitive ways toward the staff on the ship. Drunken Marxist Captain Woody Harrelson gets into a pissing contest with a drunken Russian capitalist.  This sequence includes a lot of gross-out humour and frankly goes on way too long. The third sequence is the best and features a role reversal whereby the shipwrecked people from the yacht can’t fend for themselves and need to rely on the previously low status “hired help” to take care of them – the newly elevated toilet cleaner now has the opportunity to turn the tables and lord it over the dumb rich folks (and reap some selfish rewards of her own).  There are a few interesting “truths” investigated here but it is too little too late.  Your mileage may vary.