Triangle of Sadness promises a dark comedy with Woody Harrelson, Harris Dickinson, and Charlbi Dean. It takes a meaningful social issue twist but the true sadness takes place just before the movie was released.
The dark comedy doesn’t really hit hard until “Part 2.” Until then, we have a running dialog between Carl and Yaya that establishes the founding layer of the social commentary. Wrapped up in a conversation about money and who should pay, the general meaning of the movie is hinted at when they talk about gender roles and how Carl would like them to be equal partners in their relationship.
In “Part 2,” our couple is on a yacht. We find out that the trip is a gift because Yaya is a model and an influencer who makes good money and often gets perks through her social media platform. Carl is a model but he starts to come across as a little insecure when Yaya says hello to the “help” on the yacht. This is actually the gut of the story.
There is an underlying theme about power and class structure in society. The wealthy pay their way through life expecting everyone to wait on them hand and foot while the crew work their way through life often going unnoticed. With power comes abuse while it’s the abused who are the ones keeping the world turning.
The dark humor begins at the Captain’s Dinner when Woody Harrelson finally shows his face to the passengers. He’s the ship’s captain but he’s been drunk in his cabin the whole time. The dinner starts off in bad shape as the boat starts rocking. It’s passing through a storm and at first, passengers have to lean when they walk and keep their drinks from sliding across the table. But it’s not that bad yet.
It gets worse as the evening progresses and one by one, passengers begin to experience seasickness. In a great display of wealthy excessiveness, the food keeps coming, the drinks keep getting poured, and the passengers keep getting sicker. They’re even told to continue eating to combat the sickness. That is until they’ve had enough.
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As passengers rush back to their cabins in a mad dash, the captain and a passenger named Dimitry share competing quotes of communism versus capitalism and then turn to a drinking game with cards. The rest of the ship is in total chaos with passengers vomiting all over the place and hugging their toilets in their cabins while the captain and his new friend are effectively going through bottles. One particular scene is so wild when it cuts to a lady trying desperately to get a hold of the toilet in her bathroom but the rocking of the ship keeps tossing her around.
In this dark comedy, the chaos has merely scratched the surface. The captain and Dimitry have now moved to the captain’s cabin. When Dimitry gets on the captain’s speaker, he jokingly makes the announcement that the ship is going down. Passengers start grabbing lifevests and running for their lives. The madness escalates to an absolutely wild sequence of events that will have you rolling if you do in fact appreciate dark comedy. If you don’t, then it will probably make you sad.
That’s as far as my spoilers are going to go because the real sadness of Triangle of Sadness doesn’t take place until mere months before the movie’s release. Charlbi Dean plays the role of the model and influencer in a relationship with Carl. She has her phone in her face most of the time and she only cares about having fun. Her goal in life is to be someone’s trophy wife and that’s as far as her aspirations go.
By the time Triangle of Sadness released in Greece on September 18, 2022, it was minus one cast member. Charlbi was able to be at the world premiere on May 21 of that year in Cannes but sadly, she passed away on August 29. As I was watching the movie, I found her character particularly interesting and decided to do some research.
I was gutted when I learned that she had passed away due to exposure to Capnocytophaga, a bacteria commonly found in the mouths of dogs and cats. The actual cause of death was determined to be bacterial sepsis, which means her body overreacted to an infection. By the end of the movie, she had become the most endearing character and I was savoring every scene of hers.
It was the last film she would ever do and she had no way of knowing. She died at the age of 32 with her whole life ahead of her. All of a sudden, the title Triangle of Sadness hit completely different.
