The one time I interviewed Ruben Ostlund, we talked about nature films -  how he was interested not only in patterns of behaviour, but the actual clustering and migration of animals through their environment, which he found dramatic on a purely abstract, visual level. Where both  PLAY and FORCE MAJEURE channel this sensibility interestingly - potential predators and their prey, herd mentalities at work -   THE SQUARE and now TRIANGLE OF SADNESS mostly sideline it to focus on the comedy of manners. 

Dying is easy;  comedy - of manners, or anything - is hard; discreet charm a la Bunuel is next to impossible, and our man’s reach badly exceeds his grasp (he could be a Bunuel character). For all their bought-and-paid-for technical skill and topical opportunism, Ostlund’s back to back Palmaires are basically middling cultural anthropology papers. Ideally, an accumulation of forensic, on the job details would yield an immersive onscreen world , which a TV version of this material, like THR WHITE LOTUS, achieves rather easily. But the more believably researched stuff here, about luxury  yacht protocols and chain of command hierarchies, is, as  Ostlund piles it on, less and less convincing , and because he’s a strictly realistic filmmaker - all the better to provoke and disgust, with all that realistic looking vomit and shit - belief, and its elusive beneficiary credibility, matter. I’d say this conceptually ludicrous but undeniably well modulated movie feels at odds with itself,  but it’s more like Ostlund’s style and tone are in fact fully realized l and in their refusal to pick and stay in a lane, quite feeble, bordering on obnoxious.  I’m willing to forgive obnoxiousness - and even flippant,  eat-the -rich pedantry - if it’s enfolded in shtick that makes me laugh.  I didn’t laugh much here: not at the models starving themselves in first class; not at Woody Harrelson drunkenly reciting Marx; not at the aged weapons manufacturer blown overboard by his own black market product. Nor, for the record, was I bored, or offended, or triggered;  I did not feel seen, and I did not feel like I was seeing anything new. But at least now I’ve seen it, I guess.