Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy – Nominee
In Ruben Östlund’s dark comedy Triangle of Sadness, one is not sure whether to cringe or laugh when the ultra-rich passengers on board a luxury yacht are puking and getting puked on. During a storm, the rich are forced to listen to the Marxist speeches of the ship’s drunken captain played by Golden Globe nominee Woody Harrelson.
“We wanted to create like a rollercoaster for adults and something that is entertaining and challenging and funny,” Swedish director Ruben Östlund said at the Cannes Film Festival, where his film was awarded the Palme d’Or.
Only five years have passed since he won the festival’s top prize for the provocative comedy and Golden Globe nominee The Square. “When you leave the cinema afterward, you should be, like, ‘What happened?’ You have something to talk about,” he continued.
On the luxury yacht, the travelers are privileged and behave as such. There is the Russian oligarch, Dimitryi (Zlatko Buric), who made his millions by selling excrement as fertilizer. His wife, Vera (Sunnyi Melles), says to a staff member that ‘we are all equal’, after which she orders that all crew members go for a swim – she won’t take no for an answer.
There is the seemingly cozy old English couple (Oliver Ford Davies and Amanda Walker), the rich arms dealers whose top-selling product is the hand grenade.
One of the passengers, fashion model Carl (Harris Dickinson), is not particularly rich. He’s on the trip with his model-influencer girlfriend, Yaya (Charlbli Dean), whose Instagram posts ensure that they travel for free. We meet Carl at the beginning, when he is doing a casting call. Despite being young, handsome, and physically flawless, those judging his looks point out that he has a “triangle of sadness” – a term used to describe his (non-existent) frown lines between the eyebrows. Botox seems to be the solution.
When some of the travelers end up on a deserted island, the roles are switched. Chief steward Paula (Vicki Berlin) is fast replaced by the Filipino bathroom cleaner, Abigail (Dolly de Leon). Since Abigail is the only one capable of catching fish for the travelers to survive, she is now the one in charge.
“From my perspective, because I’m Filipino and there are a great majority of overseas Filipino workers who are domestic helpers in other countries, I felt like the piece was very important,” said Golden Globe nominee Dolly de Leon at the press conference in Cannes. “This is a person who has very few advantages. But, one day, takes over a society.”
On the deserted island, a full bank account, a large number of followers on Instagram, or fancy watches no longer matter. It’s all about the survival of the fittest. Here, Abigail is the one.