Triangle of Sadness pitches itself as a sophisticated comedy with “biting” satire about elitist attitudes during class wars. However, the jabs made by writer/director Ruben Östlund are nothing more than the filmmaker taking hackneyed swings at low-hanging fruit for a really, really long time.
Brett Morgen is a brilliant documentarian as seen in Jane and Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck – the latter being one of the best movies ever made about a musician. His latest endeavour Moonage Daydream, a documentary about enigmatic artist David Bowie, is cut from the same cloth as Montage of Heck but, this time, it’s billed as more of a “cinematic experience”. And, it appears that most of the production’s focus has been applied…
Environmental lawyer Aurora (Noëlle Schönwald) has sought out refuge in Canada after her husband is mysteriously killed. She flees across the border from Colombia and then, after some additional information is explained about Aurora’s backstory, the film fast-forwards to the refugee’s contemporary lifestyle in Toronto. Despite finding new roots and separating herself from the past, some new reminders and concerning sightings have Aurora second-guessing her identity.
Set in the early-2000s, I Like Movies alternates between the double life of 17-year-old Burlington native Lawrence Kweller (Isiah Lehtinen) as an outspoken high school senior and an obsessive film buff at his local video store, Sequels Video. Lawrence is an opinionated know-it-all under both roofs, but he feels more in his element at Sequels and is elated when they finally hire him on as an employee.