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
Community Partner
Woody Harrelson, Harris Dickinson, Charlbi Dean, Zlatko Buric, Iris Berben, Vicki Berlin, Henrik Dorsin, Jean-Christophe Folly, Amanda Walker
Sweden/UK/USA/France/Greece
2022
English
Book Tickets
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Blue Heron
In the late 1990s, eight-year-old Sasha and her Hungarian immigrant family relocate to a new home on Vancouver Island. Their fresh start is interrupted by increasingly dangerous behaviour from Jeremy, the family’s oldest child.
The Last One for the Road
Two middle-aged drunkards drive across the Veneto region on a freewheeling bender, taking a young college student along for the ride. A celebration of the spirit of drink and the kinds of stories told around a table of old friends and too much wine.
How Deep Is Your Love
Filmmaker Eleanor Mortimer tags along with a team of oceanographers and marine biologists as they survey the Clarion-Clipperton fracture, one of the most remote spots on Earth, home to a dazzling array of unknown creatures.
The Mother and the Bear
Johnny Ma’s film stars Kim Ho-jung as a Korean woman who flies to Winnipeg when her immigrant daughter is hospitalized there. This crowd-pleaser plays up cultural differences to hilarious effect and offers a touching take on mother-daughter tension.
Credits
Producer
Erik Hemmendorff, Philippe Bober
Screenwriter
Ruben Östlund
Cinematography
Fredrik Wenzel
Editor
Mikel Cee Karlsson, Ruben Östlund
Production Design
Josefin Åsberg
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)