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
Heysel 85
This harrowing drama recreates the 1985 European Cup Final in Belgium, when rival football fans clashed before a ball had even been kicked. Teodora Mihal's film captures the hubris, incompetence, and politicking that compounded the escalating chaos.
A Girl Unknown
In this tender, compassionate drama, we see the hardships endured by a young girl adopted in the early 1980s during China’s one-child policy. As a teenager in the 90s, she’s still fighting to find a sense of belonging and assert her worth.
First Comes Love: Nakabingwit
An engaging hybrid documentary with a rom-com aesthetic, First Comes Love: Nakabingwit follows Canadian women in the Filipino diaspora as they search for the language to discuss race, privilege, and love with their white romantic partners.
Take Me Home
Liz Sargent’s film stars her sister Anna, who plays a woman quite like her real self: thirty something, cognitively disabled, and utterly vivacious. Exploring one unique family and the hardships it faces, this is a film of deep empathy and subtle beauty.
Image: © Farhad Ahmed Dehlvi
The Diary of a Chambermaid
Radu Jude adapts Octave Mirbeau’s classic (and much-filmed) novel in a uniquely Jude fashion, with our oppressed chambermaid prodded by her smug employers to star in a production of... Diary of a Chambermaid. This is a sly and subversive satire.
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)