Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or-winning satire has recently been added to Netflix.
Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness was one of the most talked about films of 2022, winning the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival before going on to snag a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars – where Östlund was also nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.
Now the film is getting something of a second wind thanks to its recent addition to the Netflix streaming library, meaning film fans who might have missed it first time around have the chance to catch up and see what all the fuss is about.
The film stars Harris Dickinson and Charlbi Dean (who tragically died just a few months after the film’s premiere) as a couple of models invited on a luxury cruise, where they meet a series of colourful and often ghastly super-rich passengers, as well as Woody Harrelson as the ship’s alcoholic, Marxist captain.
At a dinner one night, things rapidly descend into farce when the ship hits stormy waters, with viewers treated to a generous dose of slapstick and toilet humour before things worsen even further when the boat is attacked by pirates.
This leads us to the final act, which sees the surviving passengers stranded on a desert island, where there is a major reversal of previous roles: the super-rich passengers now rely entirely on the survival skills of a cleaning woman named Abigail (Dolly De Leon), who they had previously treated with contempt.
As Abigail realises her newfound position of power and uses it to her advantage, things eventually build to a fairly enigmatic conclusion – read on to have the Triangle of Sadness ending explained.
Triangle of Sadness ending explained: Does Abigail kill Yaya?
With Abigail having established herself as leader thanks to her top-notch survival skills – and by withholding food from the cruise ship’s other survivors if they don’t follow her command – she soon turns the situation to her advantage.
She ensures her living quarters are far better than the others’, giving herself a private bed inside a lifeboat and even coercing Carl (Harris Dickinson) into providing sexual favours – which also has the effect of making his girlfriend Yaya (Charlbi Dean) jealous.
Yaya decides to hike to the other side of the island to search for help and is accompanied by Abigail, and soon the pair find that far from having been stranded somewhere with limited resources, they are actually just a stone’s throw away from a luxury resort.
Naturally, Yaya is delighted by this discovery, but the same is not true of Abigail, who fears her newfound position of power may be lost as a result of the new information.
Instead, she prepares to attack Yaya with a rock – presumably then intending to hide the discovery from the rest of the survivors and resume her position as leader.
However, before we can definitively find out if Abigail goes through with her plan of striking Yaya with the rock, the film cuts to a scene of Carl frantically running, with the closing credits rolling shortly thereafter. So, what exactly does this all mean?
Well, the fact that we are not shown the murder essentially leaves things up to the individual viewer’s own interpretations.
There are certainly arguments both for and against: Abigail stands to gain a lot from killing Yaya and keeping the resort’s location secret, and she’s already shown that she’s not above morally dubious behaviour since she assumed power.
But would she really stoop to cold-blooded murder? She certainly looked as if she was having doubts as she held the rock over Yaya’s head, so maybe her conscience took over at the last minute.
Essentially, then, the film serves as a Rorschach test for your own views on humanity: a cynic might think Abigail does go through with the murder, while an optimist might take the opposite tack.
Östlund revealed after the film’s release that he hoped audiences would be divided by what happens, telling The LA Times: “I don’t think it is important if she kills her or not. I think the important part is, can we identify with the possibility of her to do it?
“And I think also that I had an idea that I wanted half of the audience to want her to kill and half of the audience to say, ‘No, don’t do it.’
“So, for me, it’s not interesting what she does, but that it’s possible for her to kill her.”
Meanwhile, for her part, star Dolly De Leon told Entertainment Weekly that “we can trust the audience enough to come up with their own ending”.
But she added: “I have my own personal take on it as the actor who played Abigail. Definitely, I know what Abigail’s intention is, and I’m the only one who really knows it. I would love to answer the question, but the truth is it really changes depending on the date.”
As for the question as to what exactly Carl is running from – or to – that is also left fairly ambiguous.
It’s likely that it stems from the fact he had seen a beach vendor arrive at the campsite shortly after Yaya and Abigail had set off, tipping him off that there are signs of civilisation close at hand.
But whether he is just excited to tell them of the good news or if he correctly suspects that things might go awry when they make this discovery – well, that’s again left for the audience to make their own mind up.
Triangle of Sadness is now streaming on Netflix. Sign up for Netflix from £4.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.
Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what’s on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.