TRIANGLE OF SADNESS

*CUT TO THE CHASE*

NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Jeremy

The film starts in a casting agency for male models. The interviewer, Lewis Taylor (Thobias Thorwid), gives the models questions on their jobs and expectations in the industry, often sounding patronizing to the men. After some posing for pictures, one of the models, Carl (Harris Dickinson), goes to meet with the casting agents, who remark on his “triangle of sadness” (the space between his eyes) as they take his audition.

Part 1: Carl and Yaya
Carl goes to a fashion show where his girlfriend, another model and influencer named Yaya (Charlbi Dean), is walking the runway. Afterward, the two go to dinner. When it comes time to pay, Carl takes the bill, but he gets into an argument with Yaya over her expecting him to pay for their meals when she earns more than he does. When Yaya offers to pay just to end the conversation, her card is declined, forcing Carl to pay anyway.

On their way home, Carl and Yaya continue their argument, going into the subject of gender roles. When their Uber drops them off at their apartment, the driver tells Carl he should fight for Yaya if he really loves her. Carl follows Yaya up to the apartment and gets more upset as they continue fighting. They go to their room where they calm down, but Yaya admits she is only in a relationship with him for views, likes, and follows on social media, hoping to become a trophy wife. Carl insists that Yaya will love him for real.

Part 2: The Yacht
Carl and Yaya attend a luxury cruise for social media promotion, where they are among other rich clientele. The chief stewardess, Paula (Vicki Berlin), tells her employees to say yes to everything the guests ask for, no matter how ridiculous. The two models go to the deck where Carl takes sexy pictures of Yaya for Instagram. He notices a crew member shirtless while working outside, and it prompts Carl to go and complain to Paula about it since he thinks Yaya is interested in the other man. Paula later tries to call upon Captain Thomas (Woody Harrelson), but he has locked himself in his cabin.

The models then go to the dining hall for lunch, where Carl takes more pictures of Yaya pretending to eat pasta. They meet a Russian billionaire named Dimitry (Zlatko Buric), his wife Vera (Sunnyi Melles), and a second woman, Ludmilla (Carolina Gynning). Dimitry tells the couple that he “sells shit” – meaning he owns a large fertilizer company. Elsewhere in the dining hall is a British couple, Winston (Oliver Ford Davies) and Clementine (Amanda Walker), who run a weapons manufacturing business. They try to speak to a woman, Therese (Iris Berben), but her husband Uli (Ralph Schicha) informs them that Therese suffered a stroke and cannot communicate except for one phrase.

At night, Carl and Dimitry share drinks while watching a lonely businessman, Jarmo (Henrik Dorsin), staring at Yaya and Ludmilla at the bar. Jarmo approaches the women to spark a conversation and pretends to be waiting for a woman so that they can take his picture, all while Carl and Dimitry watch his attempts to flirt with scorn and amusement.

The next day, Vera is lounging in the jacuzzi when she meets one of the crew members, Alicia (Alicia Eriksson). Vera tells Alicia to join her in the pool, to which Alicia is hesitant to agree to, but since she was told to say yes to the guests’ requests, she has no choice but to oblige. The rest of the crew is invited to go in the pool, even though Paula is not comfortable with it, and it is said that the kitchen crew needs to be there or the food will go bad. Still, everyone heads to the pool. Paula tries to get Thomas’s attention, but he emerges from his room, drunk, and doesn’t care what the crew is doing.

Later on, everyone gathers in the dining hall for dinner. Thomas receives a special plate separate from what the rest of the guests are having. Not long into the dinner, people start to get nauseous and begin to leave. Soon, the guests begin puking everywhere, leading to them heading to their rooms where they also suffer from diarrhea. Chaos ensues as the plumbing gets messed up in the midst of a violent storm, sending vomit and feces all around the floors of the ship. Thomas and Dimitry get drunk and have a loud conversation over the speakers regarding their views on communism vs. capitalism.

As the morning arrives, pirates start approaching the ship. Winston and Clementine are walking by when a grenade drops by their feet, which Clementine recognizes as one that they have manufactured. It explodes, killing them, and the pirates begin to attack the ship, leading to another more powerful explosion.

Part 3: The Island
A small group of guests – Carl, Yaya, Dimitry, Jarmo, Therese, Paula, and a ship mechanic named Nelson (Jean-Christophe Folly) – survive the attack and wash up on the shore. Dimitry accuses Nelson of being a pirate because he wasn’t seen earlier (though it’s implied it’s also because Nelson is black). The survivors attempt to find shelter on the island, especially as they come upon rain. They are startled at night by an unseen creature, and someone wastes a flare trying to get help.

In the morning, a lifeboat washes up on the shore, containing a cleaning lady from the ship named Abigail (Dolly De Leon). She emerges and gives the survivors water and food. They then sit by the water as they watch Abigail catch an octopus from the ocean as food. As evening falls, Abigail sets a fire and cooks the octopus. When she hoards more food for herself, Paula questions her, to which Abigail responds that she caught the food, cooked it, and set the fire for warmth, so she should be in charge of the group. The rest of the group relents and calls her captain so that she will share her food with them, and Paula begrudgingly accepts. After everyone goes to bed, Carl and Nelson spot Abigail’s bag left behind, and they sneak pretzel sticks out of it.

Dimitry later notices Vera’s corpse wash up on the shore. While he takes a moment to mourn her, he also cannot help but take her diamond necklace. Abigail then sees that her pretzel sticks are gone, and she knows Carl and Nelson took them. She tells them that any food she catches will not be for them, and that they have to catch their own food. As a result of Carl not eating, Abigail has him sleep with her in her lifeboat, which she has fashioned into her own private sleeping quarters.

Carl begins to spend more time with Abigail, leading to some friction with him and Yaya. The other survivors go out into the woods, where they spot a donkey. Jarmo goes to kill it, but he fails to do it in one hit, causing the animal to suffer until he bludgeons it to death, leaving him mortified, but causing Dimitry and Nelson to celebrate his kill.

Yaya tells Carl that she is going for a hike, and Abigail opts to go with her while Carl stays in the lifeboat. Meanwhile, a merchant walks by Therese with his wares, but Therese is unable to communicate with him over their situation. Yaya and Abigail discover an elevator by the beach, meaning they have been on an island resort the whole time. Just as they celebrate their discovery, Abigail, having grown jealous of Yaya’s relationship with Carl, approaches her with a large rock, intending to kill her. Before she can go through with it, Yaya offers Abigail an employment position as her assistant, leading Abigail to begin silently weeping.

The film ends as Carl begins running frantically through the woods to catch up to Yaya and Abigail.

Two models, Carl and Yaya, go on a luxury cruise ship with other affluent and wealthy Europeans. After a violent storm and evening of food poisoning, the ship is attacked by pirates, leaving the model couple, plus a few other survivors, stranded on an island.

One of the survivors, a cleaning lady named Abigail, assumes leadership of the group since she is the only one with survival skills. She takes Carl in as a personal companion in her lifeboat, and he considers leaving Yaya for Abigail since Abigail provides for him while Yaya is only concerned about her image.

Yaya and Abigail go on a hike and discover that the island is part of a resort. Abigail appears to approach Yaya with a large rock to kill her, but she stops as Yaya offers her an employment position. The last we see is Carl running after them.