Deborah Ross

Pure scorn without wit or insight: Triangle of Sadness reviewed

Ruben Ostlund's latest is billed as a ‘satirical black comedy’ but the targets are easy and it doesn’t say anything and I didn’t laugh once

Russian oligarch Dimitry (Zlatko Buric) and his mistress Ludmilla (Carolina Gynning) in Triangle of Sadness. Credit: © Plattform Produktion  
issue 29 October 2022

The latest film from Ruben Ostlund received an eight-minute standing ovation after its screening in Cannes and also won the festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or, and this has left me entirely baffled: what, the film I’ve just seen? The one where every scene is far too long? The one billed as a ‘satirical black comedy’ even though the targets are easy and it doesn’t say anything and I didn’t laugh once? That film? I should add, it’s not for the emetophobic.

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