Triangle’s social satire isn’t as pointed as it should be

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This article was published 21/10/2022 (1248 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

This eat-the-rich satire from Ruben Östlund pushes the notion that ultra-wealthy people are both awful and unhappy. That tends to be an audience-friendly gambit, at least with the non-superyacht-crowd.

Still, the Swedish provocateur is not one to let his viewers off lightly. While his anti-capitalist stance takes on some easy targets, it remains a deliberately difficult watch. As he did in Force Majeure, a sharp critique of gender and family roles, and The Square, a vicious takedown of the contemporary art world, Östlund keeps everything uncomfortable and off balance, turning almost every human interaction into tension-filled weirdness.

Unfortunately, Triangle (which is predominantly in English) isn’t as fully realized as those previous films, its satire scathing but scattershot, its storyline stretched out but underdeveloped. And damningly for a film that’s wants to be setting off bombs in the current class war, Triangle is not quite as dangerous as it seems.

Östlund presents a three-part narrative composed of abrupt, absurdist, off-kilter scenes alternating with some extended tableaux, including the sequence that’s been notorious since the film won the Palme d’or at Cannes — a comically gross wallow in projectile vomiting and overflowing toilets.

Triangle’s first chapter is set in the world of high fashion, centring on two models-slash-influencers, Yaya (Charlbi Dean) and Carl (Harris Dickinson). As the two engage in an extended emotional argument over who pays for their expensive dinner, we get brief glints of sincere feeling immediately subsumed into transactional negotiations.

It’s not surprising the two translate everything into euros, though. Scenes from their professional lives concisely demonstrate the ways their youth and beauty and fame are commodities, from humiliating cattle-call casting sessions to runway shows where a high-end label triumphantly proclaims that “Everyone is Equal,” while minions police the front row, kicking out regular people to seat celebs in their place.

The second chapter takes place on a luxury yacht cruise. Carl and Yaya, keeping up their exquisitely curated social-media facade, get free passage because of their Instagram reach. The other passengers include a Russian oligarch (Zlatko Buric), an awkward Swedish tech guy and a pair of deceptively genteel British arms dealers.

Surrounded by seemingly everything they could want — including jars of Nutella that one passenger demands be delivered by helicopter — you might think they would enjoy themselves, but no. Instead, they channel their frustrations into petty assertions of power. One lady complains that the ship’s sails are dirty, for example, a complaint that must be indulged even though the ship has no sails.

Staff members, meanwhile, led by the frantic Paula (Vicki Berlin), are veering into White Lotus terrain. Efficient service is not enough. They are expected to offer guests a kind of performative servility.

Then there’s the captain (Woody Harrelson), drunk with self-loathing because he claims to be a socialist while making his living aboard a massive floating metaphor for late-stage capitalism. He and the oligarch bond over their ability to consume copious amounts of alcohol and the ridiculousness of their respective positions: “A Russian capitalist and an American communist arguing aboard a $250-million yacht.”

Triangle’s moral queasiness morphs into physical nausea when a storm boils up and the camera angles start slanting wildly. Just as Östlund’s The Square has a performance art sequence that makes you want to hide under your seat, Triangle has the captain’s dinner, when all that finicky food is daintily consumed and then violently expelled in a semi-comic, completely disgusting barf-fest.

A reckoning for all this excess is coming, as Below Decks becomes Swept Away and survivors of the storm are stranded on an isolated island. Abigail (Dolly De Leon), previously a cleaner consigned to invisibility and anonymity, is now the only one with any practical survival skills. The balance of power shifts, as does the economy — Rolex watches are now worthless, but Carl’s sexual allure is being bartered for pretzel sticks.

This third chapter is the film’s most important, but it’s where Östlund seems to lose his momentum., and Triangle ends up an intriguing disappointment.

The film has some sideways humour, but it’s not quite the laugh-riot promised by the trailer. Its serious messages, meanwhile, are big and brash and outrageous but not as subversive as they need to be. By concentrating on the obscene wealth of the one per cent, Östlund lets us 99 per centers off the hook. Instead of making us think about our complicity in the socioeconomic order, he lets us feel complacent.

alison.gillmor@winnipegfreepress.com