Skip to main content
Triangle of Sadness film image, director Ruben Östlund, actor Woody Harrelson

Triangle of Sadness

This event has passed

Social satirist Ruben Östlund (The Square; Force Majeure) picked up his second Palme d’Or at Cannes earlier this year with this gleefully mischievous assault on the State of Things. Influencer couple Carl and Yaya (Harris Dickinson and Charlbi Dean) join a luxury cruise for the super rich. While the crew bends over backwards to accommodate the passengers’ whims (even one woman’s insistence that the entire staff stops what they are doing to enjoy a swim), the captain refuses to leave his cabin before the mandatory dinner given in his name—a tumultuous banquet which coincides with a dire turn in the weather.

Östlund retains his knack for hitting on potent and provocative situations—the banquet is an unforgettable, uproarious set piece presided over by a gloriously unflappable, stiffly inebriated Woody Harrelson. Östlund really turns the screws in the film’s second half, when a shipwreck upends the social hierarchy and suddenly, all bets are off. Granted, most of the characters are truly awful and the satire is subtle as a baseball bat. Yet the movie keeps building and damn if we don’t care about them by the end. It’s a must-see.

 

Palme d’or, Cannes 2022

 

Media Partner

Stir Logo

Community Partner

Director
Cast

Woody Harrelson, Harris Dickinson, Charlbi Dean, Zlatko Buric, Iris Berben, Vicki Berlin, Henrik Dorsin, Jean-Christophe Folly, Amanda Walker

Credits
Country of Origin

Sweden/UK/USA/France/Greece

Year

2022

Language

English

Links
18+
149 min
Award Winners Comedy Drama

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

Inay (Mama)

Dir. Thea Loo
74 min

Bold and deeply personal, Inay investigates the emotional and psychological repercussions of Canada's Live-In Caregiver Program, which attracted Filipino women migrant workers who left their children to care for strangers out of economic necessity.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Manchurian Candidate

Dir. Jonathan Demme
130 min

Jonathan Demme's superbly orchestrated take on Richard Condon's 1959 paranoia novel feels weirdly prescient in its anxieties around global corporate brainwashing, war profiteering, assassination and election fixing.

VIFF Centre - Vancity Theatre

Adrianne & the Castle

Dir. Shannon Walsh
86 min

Artist and mascot-maker Alan St-George devoted his life and work to his wife, Adrianne. Shannon Walsh's film becomes an extension of Alan's art, a tribute to a grand romance, a love that transcends all...

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Winter Kills

Dir. William Richert
97 min

An inspired black comic adaptation of the ultimate conspiracy theory, based on a novel by Richard (Manchurian Candidate) Condon. It's a lunatic riff on the Kennedy assassination(s), with Jeff Bridges finding who really killed his brother, the President. Screening in 35mm print.

VIFF Centre - Vancity Theatre

Monkey on a Stick

Dir. Jason Lapeyre
106 min

Monkey on a Stick is a feature-length documentary exposé of the criminal activity that took place in the Hare Krishna movement in America in the 1970s and ‘80s, adapted from the New York Times bestselling book.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Sugarcane

Dir. Julian Brave Noisecat & Emily Kassie
107 min

"Deeply impactful", Sugarcane is an important contribution to the ongoing process of Truth & Reconciliation in this country, a compassionate, sensitive account of the investigation into residential school abuse at Williams Lake, BC.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Credits

Producer

Erik Hemmendorff, Philippe Bober

Screenwriter

Ruben Östlund

Cinematography

Fredrik Wenzel

Editor

Mikel Cee Karlsson, Ruben Östlund

Production Design

Josefin Åsberg

Director

Ruben Östlund headshot, Triangle of Sadness director

Photo by Sina Östlund

Ruben Östlund

Ruben Östlund was born in 1974 and grew up on an island on the West Coast of Sweden. He studied at the University of Gothenburg, where he met Erik Hemmendorff, with whom he later founded Plattform Produktion. Östlund won the Golden Bear in Berlin for his short film Incident by a Bank (2010). His fifth feature, The Square (2017), which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, was subsequently nominated for a Golden Globe and an Oscar. Triangle of Sadness, his sixth feature, premiered in competition at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.

Filmography: The Guitar Mongoloid (2005); Play (2011); Force Majeure (2014); The Square (2017)