The triangle of sadness is that space right above the nose and between the eyebrows that can get all bunched up when someone is worried, or angry, or confused. We're told this in the opening moments of "Triangle of Sadness" when a male model is asked to relax his during an audition. That model, Carl, played by Harris Dickinson, is dating Yaya (the late Charlbi Dean), a social media influencer, and the first chapter of this film, titled "Carl and Yaya," consists almost entirely of the two of them bickering. Carl is vaguely frustrated by the dynamic in their relationship and feels manipulated by Yaya, but in ways he can never clearly articulate. He thinks they fall too quickly into stereotyped gender norms, but every time Yaya tries to correct the situation, he gets angry and tells her she's not getting the point. Does Carl have a valid beef with Yaya, or is he just being a jerk? Yaya admits that she's manipulative and confesses to feeling contrite about it, but is she really? And in any case, do I care about the not super important tribulations of these vapid people, and do I want to spend two and a half hours watching them?
But don't worry. Chapter 2 comes along, and Carl and Yaya's relationship quickly becomes secondary. This part is titled "The Yacht," and puts us on a luxury cruise with Carl and Yaya and a bunch of other people who will reveal themselves to be insufferable representatives of the rich and.....if not famous, then....well.....really, really rich.
The big set piece of this chapter is the captain's dinner, presided over by Woody Harrelson, who eats a hamburger and fries while everyone else eats squiggly sea creatures and disturbingly colorless jellies. He'll be glad he made that choice, because the seas get rocky. Things go quickly down the toilet from there. Except for the things that don't make it to the toilet in time. And the things that come up from the toilet in all of their liquid and ghastly detail. Seriously, this section of the movie made me queasy for a whole day afterwards every time I even looked at food.
You wouldn't think it could get much worse, but it does. We eventually get to chapter 3, "The Island," which finds a handful of survivors who've escaped an exploding yacht (long story) establishing a new social order until help arrives. This is where the movie kicks into full gear, and we start to understand better everything that came before. This is also where the actress Dolly De Leon emerges almost literally out of nowhere to steal the movie out from under everyone else. She plays Abigail, "toilet manager" on the cruise, but now queen bee, because she's the only one who has any practical skills. She can catch fish with her bare hands, make fires, cook. What happens when the social order is entirely upended? Abigail gives us a glimpse. What good are your Rolex watches when the most desired commodity becomes a bag of pretzel sticks? As Abigail establishes herself as matriarchal leader of this ragtag civilization, all of those navel gazing conversations about gender roles that Carl and Yaya were having way back at the beginning start to have more meaning, and their fraught relationship directly affects the direction things take.
This is all capped off by one of those ambiguous endings that some people will love and that will send others across the internet into a froth of rage.
"Triangle of Sadness" is not especially profound satire. It doesn't have anything to say about rich people that a million other movies haven't already said, and what it does say it says obviously and heavy handedly. But give me any movie about privileged, entitled people being made aware of their helplessness and I'm on board. And this film is right on the nose about what happens when the lower classes get a taste of the power they wield. I mean, during the pandemic, when people in service jobs couldn't work or decided not to, we saw a whole population of affluent Americans lose their minds at the thought of not having enough toilet paper. Just imagine if there had been a shortage of pretzel sticks.
This is a fiendishly entertaining movie and makes up in gumption what it lacks in subtlety.
Grade: A.
But don't worry. Chapter 2 comes along, and Carl and Yaya's relationship quickly becomes secondary. This part is titled "The Yacht," and puts us on a luxury cruise with Carl and Yaya and a bunch of other people who will reveal themselves to be insufferable representatives of the rich and.....if not famous, then....well.....really, really rich.
The big set piece of this chapter is the captain's dinner, presided over by Woody Harrelson, who eats a hamburger and fries while everyone else eats squiggly sea creatures and disturbingly colorless jellies. He'll be glad he made that choice, because the seas get rocky. Things go quickly down the toilet from there. Except for the things that don't make it to the toilet in time. And the things that come up from the toilet in all of their liquid and ghastly detail. Seriously, this section of the movie made me queasy for a whole day afterwards every time I even looked at food.
You wouldn't think it could get much worse, but it does. We eventually get to chapter 3, "The Island," which finds a handful of survivors who've escaped an exploding yacht (long story) establishing a new social order until help arrives. This is where the movie kicks into full gear, and we start to understand better everything that came before. This is also where the actress Dolly De Leon emerges almost literally out of nowhere to steal the movie out from under everyone else. She plays Abigail, "toilet manager" on the cruise, but now queen bee, because she's the only one who has any practical skills. She can catch fish with her bare hands, make fires, cook. What happens when the social order is entirely upended? Abigail gives us a glimpse. What good are your Rolex watches when the most desired commodity becomes a bag of pretzel sticks? As Abigail establishes herself as matriarchal leader of this ragtag civilization, all of those navel gazing conversations about gender roles that Carl and Yaya were having way back at the beginning start to have more meaning, and their fraught relationship directly affects the direction things take.
This is all capped off by one of those ambiguous endings that some people will love and that will send others across the internet into a froth of rage.
"Triangle of Sadness" is not especially profound satire. It doesn't have anything to say about rich people that a million other movies haven't already said, and what it does say it says obviously and heavy handedly. But give me any movie about privileged, entitled people being made aware of their helplessness and I'm on board. And this film is right on the nose about what happens when the lower classes get a taste of the power they wield. I mean, during the pandemic, when people in service jobs couldn't work or decided not to, we saw a whole population of affluent Americans lose their minds at the thought of not having enough toilet paper. Just imagine if there had been a shortage of pretzel sticks.
This is a fiendishly entertaining movie and makes up in gumption what it lacks in subtlety.
Grade: A.