“So what do you do?
– I sell shit.“

A satire on the state of the world and how it caters to the "elite", Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness is brilliant in fits and starts though it never quite sails close enough to the sun to burn either itself or its patrons. Less blunt and snappy as The Menu, but smarter and easier going, this is one not for the squeamish, the rich, or the short of attention span.

While this may sound like a mixed bag of compliments and hindrances, I mean them almost entirely in a positive manner. Something that drives me crazy about most satire is that the characters are so over-marinated in whatever their “role” is supposed to be, it’s almost impossible to believe them as actual people in any meaningful way; the entire experience is often contrived to the point of being cloying rather than flavorful. While I think that Triangle might ride that train a little too far in the opposite direction at times – outstaying its welcome a little at 2-hours and 27-minutes – it ends up in a place much more clever and true than many of the things that typically gall me from the genre.

Featuring two moments of the worst ADR I have seen in modern cinema, a brilliantly shot and realized opening act that isn’t quite matched anywhere else in the film [though the entire “Captain’s Dinner” sequence and conclusion gets close], and a little long winded during a couple of scenes, Triangle of Sadness is not without its drawbacks. I think between its aforementioned runtime and rollercoaster storytelling [slow, up, plodding moments, then very-sharp-and-cruel-satire, then slow, up…] audiences that manage to make it through what will almost certainly be talked about as “the grossest scene of 2022”, may get a little sea-sick themselves, and walk away. It’s a shame because, when this film is sharp, it is wicked nasty, but when it isn’t… it just sort of isn’t.

All-in-all, Triangle of Sadness has a lot to say about a lot of things. Some of it comes out very plainly, some of it comes out across the entire piece; all of it is worth listening to. I don't think this will be anyone's favorite movie, but it will certainly contain some people's favorite lines of sardonic social satire. The film is dark, it is gross, and it is tragically reflective of exactly the world we live in today, have lived in for a long time, and will continue living in tomorrow.

“Our products have been employed in upholding democracy all over the world… Basically, our best-selling product is the hand grenade.”