THROUGH A DARK LOOKING GLASS
Triangle of Sadness leaves you laughing at human behaviour, but not in a ha-ha way
A stroke victim whose speech has been reduced to a single, poetic phrase in German. A Marxist American yacht captain whooping it up with a Russian capitalist passenger. Truly Pythonesque levels of vomiting. All this is to be expected from writer-director Ruben Östlund, the acerbic Swede who gave us Force Majeure (2014) and its sociological sequel, The Square (2017).
Both those films (the second of which, like Triangle of Sadness, won the Palme d'or at the Cannes Film Festival) feature human behaviour viewed as though through smoky, warped glass.
The results are dark, but also very funny.
This one is set aboard a $250-million luxury superyacht. Among its passengers are Carl and Yaya, played by Harris Dickinson and Charlbi Dean (the latter died not long after filming). They are not required to pay for the trip because they are influencers. And they are influencers because they are models. We humans truly are just slightly smarter monkeys.
Östlund explores the upstairs-downstairs world of passengers and crew, uneasily sharing the same confined spaces though never unaware of their status. The first paradoxical interaction comes when one of the pursers, who has had it drilled into her that she must always answer “yes,” is told by a passenger (drunk on guilt, no doubt) that they should switch places and have the crew enjoy the pool and the hot tub. How does one respond to a command to “enjoy the moment?”
For all its humour, there's little in the way of plot here. The cruise merely exists as a frame on which to hang a number of comic set pieces, interactions and characters, like the charming old British couple whose beloved and lucrative family business was built on “upholding democracy.” They used to do a good business in landmines. These days it's all hand grenades.
There's also Zlatko Buric and Woody Harrelson as the aforementioned Russian-american duo, gleefully drinking and arguing as the ship runs into stormy seas, and the puking begins from just about everyone else. (The Captain, having provided his well-heeled guests with a dubiously wise gustatory selection of seafood, heavy creams, jellies and champagne, tucks into a plain hamburger and seems the better for it.)
The film manages to completely upend the social structure when a — let's call it an incident — occurs that leaves one of the more menial members of the crew in an unexpected position of power.
To reveal more would be to risk spoiling the fun, but suffice to say that Östlund has a keen sense of the absurdities inherent in our social structures, and the ways in which the tools needed for survival on one island — Manhattan, say — would prove woefully inadequate on, for example, Gilligan's.
I'm a big fan of Östlund's work, although I did feel that with this one he has chosen rather too large a canvas, and stretched it a little thin. The setting of a mega-water-craft filled with millionaire passengers and underpaid crew make the targets of his satire a touch too easy. But I must admit that I laughed heartily when I wasn't gagging at that throwing-up scene.
A note on the title: Triangle of sadness, it's explained in the early going, is that little crinkle of worry that forms between the eyes, easily removed with Botox or, I don't know, worrying less. Triangle of Sadness may temporarily relieve you of angst with its screwball comedy, though on further reflection of its themes, you might find those lines creeping right back in again.