'Triangle of Sadness' Movie Review: Enchantingly inviting satire on class and politics

A still from the movie, `Triangle of Sadness` (Pic courtesy: Twitter)

Film: Triangle of Sadness
Cast: Harris Dickinson, Charlbi Dean, Dolly de Leon, Zlatko Buric, Iris Berben, Vicki Berlin, Henrik Dorsin, Woody Harrelson
Director: Ruben Ostlund
Rating: 3.5/ 5
Runtime: 147 mins

The writer/director of celebrated films like 'Force Majeure' and 'The Square,' Sweden's socially conscious Ruben Ostlund, uses his sharp, acerbic and obvious wit to dismantle class and opportunistic politics in this his first English language outing and recent Palm d'Or winner. Triangle of Sadness basically refers to the Botox-ready space between the eyebrows of fashion models - and we get that from the opening act itself where models are auditioning for a high-end brand campaign.

For those looking to escape the drudgery of middle-class life, this film has the ability to take you on a delightfully visually scenic cruise ride catering to the uber-rich that inevitably hurtles towards disaster - providing you with a vicariously hysterical escape to a paradise blighted by the survival strategies of those washed ashore.

The premise is simple. What happens when a celebrity model cum ‘influencer' couple come face-to-face with the rich elite and the service and cleaning staff aboard a Cruise liner, affordable only to the Uber-wealthy?

At the very top are a class of people so wealthy that they've lost all touch with reality - wining and dining and shopping to their heart's content. An elderly, genteel Brit couple (Oliver Ford Davies and Amanda Walker)have come into their fortune "by protecting democracies around the world through precision engineering" - albeit by selling arms and ammunition. A fertilizer magnate, a Russian oligarch (Zlatko Buric), tells everyone he made his money from shit. And there are many more of their kind. While the rich sun on the deck, the largely white service staff supervised by Paula (Vicki Berlin)celebrate potential tips and the colored non-white cleaning staff await their turn in the hull below.

'Triangle of Sadness' is a three-act story. The first, which could well be a short film of its own, introduces us to Carl (Harris Dickinson) and Yaya (Charlbi Dean), two upcoming models out on a date, who, towards the end of their fancy dinner get into an argument on gender-based assumptions. Ostlund goes back and forth in time to sharply pinpoint transactional relationships and presumptive gender roles. It's a very promising start to a film that plies us with an aspirational joyride before it overturns the class hierarchy.

The second section takes place aboard a yacht that Yaya and Carl have been invited to promote through their social media handles. That is a location where the class hierarchy is most obvious. Ostlund uses biting wit to make his intent reverberate through the narrative. A woman (Mia Benson) insists that the ship that is sparkling clean all over has sails that look dirt grey - but the yacht is motorised and has no sails. Carl, jealous of a shirtless worker that dares to catch Yaya's appreciative eye, gets him fired.

A lone app-creating genius (Henrik Dorsin) is obviously grateful when two beautiful young women welcome him to take a photo with them. Another passenger (Sunnyi Melles) insists that the entire crew go for a swim. A disabled woman (Iris Berben) recovering from a stroke, can only repeat the words "In Den Wolken," which means "In the clouds."

It's quite obvious from the manner in which Ostlund sets up his narrative that the super-rich have little or no clue about ground reality and want everyone to be a slave to their whims and fancies.

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The dismantling of the hierarchy begins with the sit-down Captain's dinner held on a stormy night. The drunk world-weary Captain( Woody Harrelson) prefers to eat his hamburger while his guests dine on impressive fine-dining options specially created to impress them. While the storm starts raging outside ( obvious from the frequent turbulence within the dining area) the guests, one-by-one, begin to unravel. Ostlund uses the camera to give us a vicarious account of the nausea and intestinal upheaval the guests experience before the night devolves into an explosion of bodily fluids.

While the second act more or less dismantles most of the societal structures, the third is designed to flatten it for good and then reverse roles. Surviving after being marooned on an Island in the middle of somewhere, asks for survival skills that only the hard-working Toilet Manager Abigail (Dolly De Leon) can provide. So that sets her up as the Boss while others must do her bidding or else pay the price.

This is an acerbically funny cruise ride that makes topsy-turvy experiences look like fun. Ostlund's sharp dialogue that quotes Reganisms, Thatcherisms, Mark Twain and Vladimir Lenin coupled with Fredrik Wenzel's lustrous cinematography and some wonderful natural performances make this sardonic satire on class and politics enchantingly inviting.