Having already nabbed the Palme d’Or back in 2017 for The Square, Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund furthers this win with another at Cannes with his next feature, Triangle Of Sadness. Making a name for himself in film, his dark comedies also hold up as scathing critiques of bourgeois ideals and mindsets.
In this evergreen career, Östlund’s films have gradually become more Anglicised, a Hollywood glaze taking over. The camera is tinged in almost sepia tones, 4k cameras no doubt capturing actors’ every pore. Here, things start off quite simple with Carl and Yaya, both in the cut-throat business of supermodels. They bicker over a bill in a restaurant, the first of many agonisingly real moments of sour comedy.
The whole film leads up to a heightened trip on a yacht which no-one will forget in a hurry: an eruption of vomit and excrement turns this voyage into a dinner from hell, leading to further calamity. Some are saying this is the best scene in a film of the year and they just might be right.
A fine ensemble of actors work their magic throughout the film. Woody Harrelson is The Captain, who appears to be going AWOL on board (and isn’t in the film enough, for that matter). Dolly De Leon comes into her own as Abigail when some survivors find themselves on an island, matriarchally running things and do anything to maintain the status quo. Zlatko Burić, as Russian Dimitry, gets his finest moments as a storm looms heavy over the yacht, blasting drunken politics into the tannoy. As chief steward Paula, Vicki Berlin tries to keep things in line with ever-increasing intensity and much deadpan. As Carl, Harris Dickinson is like an English Ryan Gosling and has entertaining moments on screen, frustrated and observational.
Perhaps most notably, the film is now tinged with a great sadness – the death of Charlbi Dean, who played Yaya, in August this year remains a shock. Her talents in this vapid, calculating influencer role proves how much spirit lied within her. The film focuses on Carl and Yaya as a couple less as it goes on, though the power dynamic with Abigail leads to a tense, soaring ending that will leave us all wanting more and pondering what might have happened.
The triangle of sadness in question is the area of skin within the eyebrows down to the nose, something for which a plastic surgeon would try to pitch a bout of Botox. The vain nature of the modelling industry starts the film with aplomb, while the further exploits on the yacht and island also prove how easy it is for power dynamics to shift under certain pressure. Out of his last three films, including Force Majeure and The Square, Triangle Of Sadness might be Ruben Östlund’s best.
Dir. Ruben Östlund (15, 149 mins)
Triangle Of Sadness is out Fri 28 Oct
words JAMES ELLIS