Triangle of Sadness Review
Savage social satire eats its rich. ★★★★☆
“Rich people suck” was the general gist of The Menu, Mark Mylod’s fun but overrated culinary carving, served just a month after this infinitely better roasting of high society.
Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or-winning Triangle of Sadness covers more ground, but doesn’t lose any potency in its condemnation. Interweaving stories told across three vastly different settings come together in a jet-black social satire that’s as hilarious as it is maddening.
Much of the marketing has wisely centred around the film’s middle act, an increasingly insane farce serving as a wincing takedown of reality-challenged elites and the poor souls that have to deal with them. Smiles permanently and painfully etched on their faces.
But what elevates Östlund’s effort is his willingness to accept the nuance of the situation. Not all guests aboard the doomed superyacht are so easily identified as monsters, an uncomfortable truth the film delights in spilling moments before the cringe assault crescendos with a very different kind of spill.
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