It’s been quite the 12 months for “Triangle of Sadness.” Ruben Östlund’s wealth satire won the Palme d’Or at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival and received three Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. Nearly a year after its premiere, the film continues to evoke disgust and laughter from audiences around the globe. And now it has picked up what might be the most prestigious honor of all: an endorsement from Ashton Kutcher.
One of the film’s most famous scenes features a group of shirtless male models at a casting session being told to switch between their moody “Balenciaga face” and their cheerful “H&M face” at will. It’s a scene that resonated with Kutcher, who launched his career as a male model in the 1990s. In a new interview with Esquire that saw Kutcher reflecting on his modeling career, the sitcom star and venture capitalist singled out Östlund’s film as one of the more accurate portrayals of the fashion industry that he has seen.
“If you want to see an extraordinarily accurate depiction of what it’s like to be a male model, watch the first ten minutes of ‘Triangle of Sadness,'” Kutcher said. “I remember living that scene. The depiction is so accurate it’s terrifying.”
While “Triangle of Sadness” takes place in three distinct settings — the world of modeling, a luxury cruise ship, and an island after the cruise ship crashes — many have cited the fashion scenes as a high point of the film.
In his Cannes review, IndieWire’s David Ehrlich wrote that: “It starts, as all movies should, in the world of high-end male modeling. A muted and dangerously almost-smart Derek Zoolander type who Harris Dickinson plays to perfection, the 25-year-old Carl is reaching the geriatric stage of his career, and the anxiety over his economic future is starting to make his eight-pack look two abs short. A merciful society would simply euthanize Carl rather than make him suffer the slow indignity of losing Instagram followers — and spare us the unpleasantness of having to look upon this hideous creature for another 145 minutes — but the fashion industry is not so kind.”
One of the film’s most famous scenes features a group of shirtless male models at a casting session being told to switch between their moody “Balenciaga face” and their cheerful “H&M face” at will. It’s a scene that resonated with Kutcher, who launched his career as a male model in the 1990s. In a new interview with Esquire that saw Kutcher reflecting on his modeling career, the sitcom star and venture capitalist singled out Östlund’s film as one of the more accurate portrayals of the fashion industry that he has seen.
“If you want to see an extraordinarily accurate depiction of what it’s like to be a male model, watch the first ten minutes of ‘Triangle of Sadness,'” Kutcher said. “I remember living that scene. The depiction is so accurate it’s terrifying.”
While “Triangle of Sadness” takes place in three distinct settings — the world of modeling, a luxury cruise ship, and an island after the cruise ship crashes — many have cited the fashion scenes as a high point of the film.
In his Cannes review, IndieWire’s David Ehrlich wrote that: “It starts, as all movies should, in the world of high-end male modeling. A muted and dangerously almost-smart Derek Zoolander type who Harris Dickinson plays to perfection, the 25-year-old Carl is reaching the geriatric stage of his career, and the anxiety over his economic future is starting to make his eight-pack look two abs short. A merciful society would simply euthanize Carl rather than make him suffer the slow indignity of losing Instagram followers — and spare us the unpleasantness of having to look upon this hideous creature for another 145 minutes — but the fashion industry is not so kind.”