'Triangle of Sadness' mines some riches from an indifferent 1%
Neon
A filmmaker attempting to expose the ultra-rich and oblivious as selfish, deeply problematic people may as well pop on a Captain Obvious hat. Yet writer-director Ruben Ostlund (“Force Majeure,” “The Square”) spends much of “Triangle of Sadness” fashioning familiar parts into something tart and challenging. It’s not just a movie about the ills of capitalism and the desensitized, status-entrenched mentality of financial hoarders; it’s a question about human nature itself and whether or not the zero-sum, perpetually competitive society that has been built in so many places can function without being at war with itself.
The film is broken into three parts, with its precision arguably arriving in descending order. The first features bickering models Carl (Harris Dickinson) and Yaya (Charlbi Dean), who attempt to discuss who pays for dinner and fall into fury that seems to have everything to do with the past and future and no relationship to the present. In the second part the couple and a bunch of older folks who are even better off cruise on a luxury yacht, and best not to spoil anything else that happens there, or in the resulting third section. What should be noted is how pointed Ostlund is with his awareness of everyone’s perspective in the first two parts, and how the third part leans too hard into oversimplifications and cynicism that refuses to generate surprise. (“Triangle” is neither as stylized as something like “The Neon Demon” nor as specific as any individual episode of “The White Lotus.”) The story drives the people instead of the opposite, and that’s a problem.
Yet “Triangle of Sadness” is exhilarating at its best and worthy of reflection even at its most obvious and narrow. The filmmaker, who can be both very funny and quite gross, skewers the ways in which society may drive people to suppress their humanity and wonders how much human nature goes against the very concept of society itself.
It’s a pitch-black perspective for a movie that wouldn’t be mislabeled as a comedy, albeit one in which what previously seemed like well-established contentment is only one storm away from disaster. The subject matter isn’t news; the execution inspires discomfort and conversation.
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