Ruben Östlund orchestrates absurdity like a maestro. More than a satire, Triangle of Sadness feels like a cinematic Dadaist painting that revels in its contradictions—a grotesque symphony of chaos that makes you laugh, wince, and squirm, sometimes all at once.The film disrupts the white, heteronormative gaze with its absurd dissection of wealth and social hierarchies. Through a queer and QPOC lens, its power dynamics cut even deeper.
It follows a celebrity couple aboard a luxury cruise with the ultra-wealthy, where decadence collides with disaster. What begins as indulgence spirals into unhinged chaos, dismantling social hierarchies with a wicked grin.
Ruben Östlund doesn’t just critique wealth—he eviscerates the social hierarchies built on beauty, labor, and complicity. The film opens with a biting parody of the fashion industry: vacant stares, hollow affirmations, and beauty commodified to absurdity. This sharp jab sets the stage for Carl (Harris Dickinson) and Yaya (Charlbi Dean), a model-couple whose relationship is more transactional than romantic. Their polished façade begins to crack under the weight of petty power struggles—who pays the bill, who holds control—a perfect microcosm of the transactional nature of all relationships under capitalism.
From this absurd fashion world, the narrative shifts to the yacht, where privilege spirals into grotesque horror. Imagine Titanic remade by Buñuel on a bender, the iceberg swapped for a relentless tide of bodily fluids and unchecked decadence. It’s comedy meets nightmare, as if Hieronymus Bosch painted a cruise brochure. The layers of exclusion and exploitation are palpable, especially for queer and POC bodies. Grotesque humor aside, the film lays bare how marginalized identities are often consumed, commodified, and erased.
De Leon’s Abigail is quietly ferocious, embodying centuries of invisible labour with a simmering defiance. Her rise in the final act is both thrilling and ominous—a stark reminder of how power mutates but rarely dissolves. Abigail’s authority, though well-earned, remains precarious and conditional, mirroring how marginalised people are granted token power within systems that still seek to exploit them. Her dynamic with Carl unravels the intersections of desire, power, and exploitation—particularly resonant for QPOC navigating spaces of privilege.
For all its satire, Triangle of Sadness never feels smug. It implicates everyone, including the audience, whether you’re laughing at the absurdity or cringing through the excess. I left wondering: How much of my discomfort was from the film’s critique, and how much from realizing I’m complicit in the spectacle it skewers?
Östlund doesn’t offer resolution. Instead, he invites us to sit with the discomfort, to confront systems too broken to collapse completely.
Triangle of Sadness feels like being invited to a decadent feast, only to realize halfway through that you’re on the menu. Unsettling, absurd, and quietly devastating—a film that critiques as much as it implicates.
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