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
Le rêve américain
This French crowdpleaser about a couple of nobodies who set themselves up as basketball player agents hits all the right story beats. You wouldn't believe it except that it happens to be true.
Image: © Mika Cotellon
Another World
This hit anime from Hong Kong gives us an unpredictable, sometimes darkly karmic tale taking place on either side of the afterlife involving a headstrong princess with bad karma and the spirit guide who tries to help her get on a better path.
Alipato At Muog (Flying Embers & A Fortress)
Burgos' impassioned documentary about the military abduction of his brother Jonas, an activist and organizer, and the subsequent cover-up, recently became only the second doc to win the Filipino Academy Award for Best Film.
Time and Water
Sara Dosa (Fire of Love) turns her attentions from volcanoes to glaciers in this singular, personal collaboration with the Icelandic writer Andri Snær Magnason, who ruminates on the loss of ties to family and to landscape.
Mistura
This foodie film from Peru tells the story of a newly single socialite reinventing herself — and the local cuisine — after her husband has left her for a younger woman. Along the way, she finds support from unexpected places...
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)