2023 OSCARS: Triangle of Sadness (2022) - Empathy/Humor by Tripling Down on Vomit/Diahrrea

[Quick Summary: After a fashion couple join a cruise for the super-rich, it is shipwrecked and the hierarchy is turned upside down.]

This script is broken into 3 parts: life before the cruise; the cruise; and the island.*

My favorite scene was when Carl resents his girlfriend Yaya for not picking up the check.** I would've happily like to have explored more of this dynamic.

However, the writer wanted to talk about bigger issues like how we pretend how important rich "influencers" are, but dump us in nature, and we're all the same.

I don't know any more effective way to spread empathy than to demonstrate what affects us all: seasickness, illness and/or common bodily functions.

This scene below was extremely effective on me because:
- Paragraph 1 begins with sympathy ("I've cleaned up messes before").
- Paragraph 3 moves to empathy, i.e., vicarious experiences, of helplessness when ill and unable to control it. ("I feel woozy from the smell.")
- Paragraphs 7-9 move to pain/panic/humor when it devolves into retching in filth. ("There's a sense of...release(?) in letting it all go?")

INT. YACHT/ DINING ROOM - NIGHT

While the Captain is busy "preaching," a crew of six Filipino cleaning ladies, wearing lab masks, march into the dining room. They clean the mess methodically. One of them has headphones on. We move in on her ear and one of the earbuds. She's listening to Rage Against The Machine, "Killing In The Name." As she's wiping up vomit under a table the music becomes more and more distinct. 

"Now you do what they told ya...Now you do what they told ya...And now you do what they told ya"

Somewhere at this point the audience should - depending on their capacity for empathy - feel that the passengers have had enough. We don't want to see any more vomit. We want mercy for them. At that very moment, through Vera, we realize that they are not only seasick, they are suffering from food poisoning as well and now they desperately need to take a shit.

VERA: Mama! Uaaahhhhh...Help!

We see panic in their eyes as they dash back into the filthy toilets rights when "Killing In The Name" swells to its first climax.

The plumbing goes on the fritz and starts backing up into the hallway.

Shit and vomit start welling up from the toilets, drains, and sinks. Slime is oozing along the walls and out to the carpeted areas.

The passengers panic and try to get away from the stench and incredible filth.

They don't stand a chance against nature and their bodily impulses. They spew at both ends uncontrollably and everywhere.

Carl and Yaya hold hands in their life jackets.

WHAT I'VE LEARNED: We find empathy and humor in the things we have in common, so triple down on bodily functions.

Triangle of Sadness (2022)(green revision)
Directed and written by Ruben Ostlund

*The script actually lists: "Part Two - The Cruise Ship" and "Part Three - The Island."

** This really happened to the hilarious writer, as he recounts here.