FILM: TRIANGLE OF SADNESS: A HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

BY: LOUISE BARRETTO

CHARLBI DEAN AND HARRIS DICKINSON AS YAYA AND CARL

If you’ve seen director Ruben Östlund’s other Cannes Palme D’Or winning film The Square, it’s clear that he has a knack for parodying professions that can seem pretentious, by doing so, taking audiences for a wild ride while also providing social commentary on the rich and famous. Instead of just glamorizing the lives of the elite, he shows how ridiculous it truly is by putting them in tricky situations and letting it all play out.

Triangle of Sadness places characters on a luxury yacht, all with different lives and social statuses: Woody Harrelson plays a socialist yacht captain who encounters a Russian Oligarch, Charlbi Dean and Harris Dickinson play fashion models-influencers who didn’t have to pay for their yacht tickets in exchange for social media posts. And then, there are the downstairs / tucked away yacht crew who have to fulfill every whim of the passengers.

The film is broken up in three acts: the first about the relationship of two fashion models Yaya (Dean) and Carl (Dickinson) which sheds light into cisgender relationships where a man pays for everything. Carl wants more equality and questions the gender roles that society has instilled; the second is about being on the yacht with other rich guests and all their different life philosophies and reasons for going on the trip as an escape; the third and last is being on an island — kinda like an episode of Survivor and Lost, where the status quo is upended and power is flipped to the person with real life survivor skills.

When the surviving yacht passengers end up on the island, all fake niceties are thrown out the window and all the characters are relegated to fulfilling the bottom pyramid of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. When you have everything, you don’t appreciate having shelter, heat, water, food. This is where Abigail (Dolly De Leon) truly shines as the yacht’s toilet manager. On the boat, she literally cleans shit, but on the island, she’s a hunter and gatherer and basically gets to lead the tribe. If they don’t listen to her, they don’t eat or have less chances of survival.

Triangle of Sadness is a reminder that before we had to the luxury to pursue our full potential, at the very least, we’ve forgotten that we need our basic needs fulfilled first. And it’s easy to overlook those needs when you’re on top of the food chain.