By Caitlin Quinlan

Published in Cinema Scope #91 (Summer 2022)

The aphorism “eat the rich,” long attributed to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, has found a contemporary home in popular media. Whether TikTok teens making snappy, meme-laden upper-class critiques in under a minute (now competing for Cannes awards themselves) or established filmmakers navigating narratives of wealth and privilege in Palme d’Or and Oscar-winning features like Parasite (2019), targeting the better-off at present has a deep-seated sense of satisfaction, for obvious reasons.

There was a feeling soon after the Cannes premiere of Triangle of Sadness, Swedish satirist Ruben Östlund’s latest “eat the rich” parable, that it could be a serious contender for the Palme given that, once again, it gave the jury a chance to lean hard into such schadenfreude. Never mind the already clear us-versus-them nature of the Cannes jury, made up of extremely well-paid actors and directors: the ultimate gifting of the Palme to Triangle of Sadness was used to give the dubious impression of class solidarity. It does feel unfortunate that a more adventurous choice wasn’t selected, especially given that Östlund won the same prize only five years ago with his previous film The Square, which treads similar satirical ground in the art world, to lesser effect.

Still, Triangle of Sadness offers something lively and audience-friendly when compared to its gloomier competitors at Cannes. Divided into three demarcated acts, the film loosely follows model and influencer couple Carl (Harris Dickinson) and Yaya (Charlbi Dean), Gen Z-ers who have more money and social media followers than common sense. Carl is struggling for work, given that his “triangle of sadness,” i.e., the space where frown lines gather between his eyebrows, is too prominent and his walking style isn’t up to scratch. When Yaya expects, without hesitation, that he will pick up their expensive restaurant bill even though she previously offered to pay for their next date, he becomes enraged: as a woman, Yaya earns considerably more than him in their field and commands better sponsorships, gender roles be damned. Never one for brevity, Östlund takes pleasure in painstakingly laying out every facet of the argument, winding the scene into a spiral of ridicule and destruction. 

This first act is a showcase for Dickinson, who brings so much to a character who is fundamentally empty. It’s not damning with faint praise to say that he plays a certified himbo spectacularly well—in fact, he embodies the role with immense skill and expressive control, though Östlund soon shifts focus. The film’s middle section looks more broadly at the hierarchies of a super-yacht on which Carl and Yaya, reconciled and enjoying the perks of the latter’s platform, are cruising along with a range of other stinking-rich guests. Östlund tackles the ecosystem aboard ship with a humour that mixes both insight and silliness, as he limns such figures as a Russian oligarch who made his fortune on fertilizer (or just “shit,” as he calls it) and a German woman who has lost the ability to say anything other than “In der Wolken” (“In the clouds”) after suffering a stroke. In the clouds they all are, this ship’s monied company, floating away on their capitalist reveries where no harm could ever possibly befall them.

Then comes the vomit. Östlund’s flair for on-the-nose comedy reaches a zenith on a stormy night at sea, when a shellfish dinner goes awry and cues the largest volume of bodily fluids depicted on screen this side of Monty Python’s The Meaning Of Life (1983). As in that film’s legendary “Mr. Creosote” scene, just when you think Triangle’s explosion of effluvia might be over, another unsuspecting guest will slide from one end of a bathroom to another, lubricated by their own excrement; meanwhile, as chaos reigns in the dining hall, the dipsomaniac, Marxist boat captain (Woody Harrelson) exchanges slurred political axioms with the fertilizer king in the ship’s control room, where they have secured themselves for the storm. Not for the queasy-stomached, it goes without saying, this extended sequence could be derided as unnecessary spectacle and cheap thrills, but it is through its very duration and excess that Östlund finds success. Why not reward the uber-wealthy who gorge themselves on oysters and champagne (which one guest prefers to water) with such an exaggerated comeuppance? 

Triangle makes no attempt at subtlety, but when the mockery is this relentless and the dialogue as enjoyably caustic as it is in the film’s first hour, it’s hard to take issue with it. The cinematography, courtesy of Östlund’s regular DP Fredrik Wenzel, is similarly crisp, giving the film a clinical aesthetic and a wide, empty frame that creates an air of detachment and coldness toward the subjects of the filmmaker’s hijinks, a shiny, clean surface upon which their shiny, clean lives can be first dissected, then pounded into a messy paste. If the film had ended after the brilliant catastrophe that closes the second act, it would have triumphantly rounded off Östlund’s exercise in ridicule; but instead, Triangle washes up on an island where survivors of the boat’s demise face the new challenge of fending for themselves in the third and final act, in which the form and control that the film had previously evinced begin to slip into the obnoxiously overlong and unruly. 

On this remote stretch of land, the power dynamics shift. The yacht’s Filipina cleaning lady, Abigail (played by standout Dolly de Leon), is the only castaway who knows how to build a fire and catch fish for the group’s survival, and she seizes this power with full force. Despite initial protestations from the boat’s crew manager (Vicki Berlin), who is accustomed to whipping her team into shape, Abigail takes control of the remaining supplies and food, distributing them as rewards and withholding them as punishment. What Abigail really wants is Carl, a boy-toy for her ego trip, and soon he is sneaking away from Yaya in the night to the emergency vessel washed up on the shore that Abigail has claimed as her living quarters. 

This section of the film feels much more rote and procedural than the preceding moments of boisterous charm, minimizing the impact of the already overstated themes by extending the drama past the point of engagement. Triangle of Sadness clocks in at an overlong 147 minutes, and post-festival interviews suggest there is an even longer cut of the film preferred by Östlund that would almost certainly take its overkill to new heights. It’s a shame that Abigail’s rise to power, which is initially as equally satisfying as the film’s earlier movements, takes place as the story begins to dawdle and become more tedious. But what Östlund does so well is lay bare obvious truths—that capitalism is a force of destruction and that human decency is lost in the face of obscene wealth—and use the superficiality and extravagance of such a milieu to convey his critique. 

There is a flippancy to Triangle of Sadness that has been at the root of the divided response to the film, but ultimately, the inevitability of its arc—of course the guests treat the staff with contempt, of course their seemingly deserted island home has a surprise waiting—ably mirrors the nature of wealth and privilege in contemporary society. Östlund’s hyperbole suggests that when it comes to jokes about the rich, there’s no such thing as a cheap shot; the director revels in the farcical misfortune of his characters, and invites us to do the same. Up in our own clouds of wishful thinking, we gape with awe at their downfall.

Caitlin Quinlan