With a title like that, what could this movie possibly be about?
A Disney movie about the Bermuda Triangle dealing with its parents’ deaths?
An adaptation of Dave Gorman’s Important Astrology Experiment?
Emo porn?
No, the title comes from a descriptor for a part of the human face, where furrowed brows meet the top of the bridge of the nose and form a little triangle. It’s a term used a lot by plastic surgeons, who would treat such things with Botox, and it’s an interesting introduction for a film all about people who think money can fix anything and everything.
As is the actual introduction, with the first part (Carl & Yaya) basically being an extended argument between the titular couple (played by Harris Dickinson and Charlbi Dean respectively) about who should pay for that night’s dinner out. Framed with recurring declarations of “the money doesn’t matter”, it strikes a similar tone to seeing Jessie J sing Price Tag at the 2012 Olympics Closing Ceremony, only this film is in on the joke.
Of course, the joke is about as clever as pointing out the hypocrisy of Jessie J in that performance, and the rest of the satire within this film is far from subtle. It is as obvious as an overflowing toilet lip-synced to the rantings of a drunken Marxist ship captain, and if that sounds too specific to have been made up (by me, at least), it’s because that actually happens in this movie. This is in competition with Jackass Forever for the most bodily fluids I’ve seen on the big screen in 2022.
Not that I’m bringing up the lack of subtlety as a negative, though. For as much as I lacerated Don’t Look Up last year, I don’t mind satire and comedy in general involving obvious statements about the world. I mean, one of my favourite films is Sausage Party, and that’s partly because it’s so full force with its observations. So long as it’s actually funny, I don’t mind how low the blows are. And here, while it’s somewhat dragged out by the two-and-a-half-hour run time, I’d say that this gets the job done.
It starts out with the first part following a model and an Instagram influencer (apologies for the redundancy), then the second part has them going on a cruise trip for the super-rich, and the third part… well, let’s just say that things take a turn for the Lord Of The Flies. The first part is the most succinct in its critiques, starting out with a few digs at the modelling industry, and then taking aim at the pretences of boutique fashion labels. Along with echoing certain remarks about the power of advertising in Ruben Östlund’s previous film The Square, the repeated mantra of “Everybody’s equal” along with the slogan “Cynicism masquerades as optimism” make for solid throughlines for what’s to come. While the tones shift slightly between the three parts, they all share the same general theme of how people commoditize attractiveness and aesthetics.
Once we get to the cruise ship, things go for the all-out classist statements, and with the conflicts between the obscenely wealthy guests and the hard-working crew members, it’s still quite accurate. Having two separate scenes of deck chair lounging soundtracked by Des’ree’s Life, one of the most vapid pop songs ever recorded, had me cackling in my seat. There’s also an interesting moment of sexual roleplaying between Carl and Yaya that actually got me thinking about how porn fantasies kind of bank on class divides (e.g. having sex with the pool guy means that you’re rich enough to afford a pool and hire someone to clean it for you).
Also, as Woody Harrelson as the aforementioned Marxist captain and Zlatko Burić as Russian oligarch Dimitry argue about their respective viewpoints at the dinner table, literally Googling famous quotes to retort each other with, it really shows how circular and majorly unhelpful the whole debate-bro/public intellectual/“dude, we should totally do a podcast together” mindset truly is. That they almost-literally start doing a podcast over the ship’s PA system only furthers that idea.
And once things go for the more tribal after a sudden run-in with pirates, the true MVP of the film makes herself known: Dolly de Leon as Abigail, former toilet attendant and then leader of the pack because she’s the only one who can start a fire. She gives a performance that pantses a hefty amount of what I’ve seen on-screen this year, showing what can happen when the power dynamic shifts. Again, the classist satire is quite on-the-nose, but as the third act shows that same materialistic mindset lingering after they lose all of their material possessions, it still hammers home some interesting ideas.
Then there’s the ending, which basically shows that all of this wasn’t for nothing on the characters’ part, and that at least some of them are beginning to realise that holding onto power, no matter what economic system it’s built on, isn’t worth what’s needed to maintain it. The final shot especially made for an image of discarding one’s social currency that I’m expecting to linger with me for a while.
I’ll admit that I can’t get enough of this kind of ‘eat the rich’ pisstake humour (see my review for Michael Winterbottom’s Greed for further proof of this), and while a lot of it is rather familiar stuff at this point, I found quite a few moments of true inspiration in here too. It’s a hysterically wild ride that, provided you’re not too turned off by copious amount of vomit, makes for an entertaining dressing-down of class systems.
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