‘Triangle Of Sadness’ Is The Most Fun You Will Have At The Cinema This Year, Possibly Ever

Due to its clever marketing across social media that has sparked much curiosity lately about the new Triangle of Sadness film, I decided to attend an opening night screening in Los Angeles. With a sold-out crowd consisting of a bunch of strangers seeking a good time, I can confidently say that I have never in my life seen a movie theater erupt with such consistently uproarious laughter throughout the entirety of a film until now.

Written and directed by Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund, Triangle of Sadness centers around a wildly lavish cruise excursion filled with super-rich guests and various levels of crew members onboard, effectively shining a spotlight on the very clear differences between class systems that we in society often see. When outlandish mishaps begin to arise, both big and small, moviegoers soon witness the gradually brutal demise of the elite, from an “I sell shit” fertilizer tycoon to a supermodel social media influencer.

As I witnessed firsthand the overwhelming satisfaction of moviegoers walking out of the theater after watching Triangle of Sadness as they continued to enthusiastically talk about the film with those who accompanied them, long after the ending credits rolled, I decided to reach out to writer/director Östlund to better understand this refreshingly original storytelling and learn about its filmmaking process from this cinematic mastermind.

First off, how did the film’s title come about? There is a scene early on that involves a casting director telling an auditioning male model (played brilliantly by Hollywood actor on the rise and one of the film’s stars, Harris Dickinson) to not use his “triangle of sadness” when demonstrating his runway walk. However, I knew there must be more to the story in order to choose that phrase as the title above the endless other options he could have chosen.

Östlund tells me, “It was my wife’s friend that had a dinner with someone, like a first date or something. This guy tells my wife’s friend I can tell you have a deep ‘triangle of sadness’ – what kind of trouble have you been through? She doesn’t know what it is and he’s pointing between her eyebrows. He goes No worries, we can fix that with botox in 15 minutes. In Swedish, it’s called ‘trouble wrinkle’ because you have it because of troubles and that if you fix your surface, you’re going to deal with the problem. It’s just something about that, that says something about our times, I guess.”

Even though Östlund might seem new to the filmmaking scene to some American moviegoers, he has in fact made a handful of feature films before Triangle of Sadness, including The Square, Force Majeure and Involuntary. Being the visionary of this latest fictional world, I wondered how he initially got the idea for this rather unconventional Triangle of Sadness tale.

“Once again, it’s back to my wife because when I met her, I got to know that she works as a fashion photographer,” Östlund continues. “I got curious of the fashion industry and I wanted to hear her tell things from the inside. You have a certain kind of outside perspective on it and it’s a little scary, that industry, but you’re also attracted to it – the aspect of being attracted to beauty, but she told me quite many interesting things. So, that was the starting point.”

With a diverse and talented ensemble cast leading the way on-screen, including Woody Harrelson from America, Dickinson from England, the late Charlbi Dean from South Africa, Dolly De Leon from the Philippines, Vicki Berlin from Denmark, Zlatko Burić from Croatia, Sunnyi Melles from Luxembourg and so on, I was curious if it was important for Östlund and his Triangle of Sadness pre-production team to bring a variety of actors from all over the world to this project.

Östlund reveals, “I really tried carefully to find the right actor for the part. I wanted to create an ensemble that was a color palette, like really rich. We were joking a little bit when we were starting up the project and I said Okay, we’re going to create The Real Madrid, the soccer team. We are going to take the best players and create like 11 fantastic ensemble [actors] that we enjoy to watch.”

What Triangle of Sadness arguably does best is throw obscene wealth and privilege on its head, creating a narrative where power and social hierarchy can quickly be switched when the most unexpected moments of survival occur. So, being the real “captain” of this film, I wondered what Östlund hopes audiences will take away most from watching Triangle of Sadness.

“I think that we live in a time where we’re so obsessed with the individual,” Östlund continues. “We are trying to explain everything from the individuals. We are always trying to find the good guy and the bad guy, even in news reporting. I wanted to be able to to identify with all the characters, even the arm’s dealers, and I wanted to make them nice. I think that I wanted to rather show that it’s the setup of the situation that their actions are coming from. It’s bringing back like sociology as an awareness of when we look at the world.”

Triangle of Sadness filmed a majority of its on-location production in Greece and as Östlund openly shares, life somewhat imitated art on the set of his film, when unforeseen obstacles arose in the midst of production.

“Well, we were shooting during the pandemic, so if you asked the producers, they would definitely say that created a huge stress element,” Östlund says. “We did over 1,200 Covid test and all were negative, so [we were] extremely lucky. We had to shut down the production two times. In the first wave of the pandemic, we were shooting all these ‘throw up’ scenes and it was a strange feeling to do that because everybody was scared of hearing someone start coughing and doing things like that. We were also on the set that was rocking, so we had a gimbal that was rocking like 20 degrees in both directions. The crew was dealing with sea sickness, so we had sea sick pills. Not all of us but some of us had to be sick with the sea sickness.”

Fortunately, Östlund and his production team were able to weather the storm and complete filming, where the project moved onto the post-production editing phase. Known for often choosing to also take on an editing role on his films, even with his dedicated writing and directing responsibilities, I did ask Östlund why he chooses to have such an active hand in editing the footage into its final product.

Östlund responds, “I think there are so many ideas that come up during all the different parts of making a movie. So when you’re writing, one thing is happening. When you’re casting, you get new ideas. When you do the shooting, you get new ideas – and when you’re in the editing, you get more ideas. I’ve worked a lot with graphic design and Photoshop and so on. I can do some special effects, so I can actually try out things. For example, I added flies in one of the scenes. Then, I sit and edit flies for four weeks (laughs) and you can’t ask someone else to do that if you’re just trying something out. You would never afford it, but when I do it, then I really can put the time and the editing into it.”

Back in May, Triangle of Sadness had its world premiere at the 75th Cannes Film Festival, winning the prestigious Palme d’Or award, a prize Östlund has received twice now – the first time in 2017 at Cannes for his previous film The Square.

When speaking of his festival experience this year, Östlund says, “For me, Cannes has always been a dream as a filmmaker to present your films there. That’s where my heroes have presented their films and the films that I’ve been inspired on, but there was a point where it felt like it became a little bit too arthouse cinema, the European industry. I wanted to bring in the more wild, entertaining way – at the same time, being thought-provoking. I’m really, really happy that Cannes acknowledged this [film].”

Following its success at Cannes, NEON obtained the film distributing rights of Triangle of Sadness in North America, which began a wave of creative marketing with eye-catching posters, an intriguing trailer and more to entice Western audiences to want to uncover the truth behind these peculiar teasers.

“I love NEON,” Östlund expresses. “They have fun when they’re working and you can tell, you see that, the different things that they’re doing – the social media part and so on. They have come up with great ideas in a playful, fun way. At the same time, we try to be true to the topic and I really think they point out the satire and comedy of the film in the marketing.”

As Triangle of Sadness opens theatrically in more cities across the U.S. and the world at large, I wondered what favorable reactions from critics and the public alike have stood out most to Östlund so far.

He says, “We were on a press screening, with the press in Cannes, and there was one person standing up and screaming This is cinema! I feel that in order to create something that people leave their screens at home, people have to have an experience in the room where they go to the theater and it’s just something that we have been aiming for. We can tell that people get strong experience from the film and that just makes me so happy.”

As much as Triangle of Sadness would and should fall under its worthy achievement of the “comedy” category, there are parts of the film where even the audience feels torn on when they should continue laughing and when they should more so sympathize with the circumstances these fellow human characters find themselves in, regardless of wealth and status. I decided to ask Östlund if this inner-morality conflict for even moviegoers was intentional when he was first brainstorming this screenplay.

“Yes, I think that comes from inspiration that I have had from other filmmakers,” Östlund continues. “What kind of reaction should I have with this? It makes me think much more and be more on my toes. So, if a film can go in a certain direction where all of sudden, there is a tipping point and it’s up to me as an individual to actually make a standpoint and react on it, then I think the concentration is much stronger in the audience.”

Following its major praise at Cannes this year and a growing list of movie houses bringing Triangle of Sadness into their theaters to be experienced on the big screen, I concluded our conversation with wondering what Östlund plans to do next with his cinematic storytelling and if he has any interest in working closer with Hollywood in the future.

“I have my own production company [Plattform Produktion] that I run together with one of my best friends, Erik [Hemmendorff]. We met in film school. We have been working 20 years now. We are producing together with a French company. This longterm relationship is so important for me because we also build up a relationship to the distributors. We want be loyal to distributors because they have been loyal to me when I have made films that maybe have been less of a success in the cinema, so I think it’s a journey that I want to share with the people that I have started this journey.”