This is the fourth Best Picture nominee I’m reviewing, after Everything Everywhere All at Once, All Quiet on the Western Front, and Tár. And my first reaction, honestly, is simply, “That was quite a movie.” I saw it several weeks ago, and I’m still mulling it over.
We set sail aboard a luxury cruise, exploring the complex ecosystem of the ultra-wealthy passengers, the working-nonstop crew, and the no-bullshit captain. What begins as an exercise in babysitting a bunch of pampered rich people at sea for a week is upended when disaster strikes, and the power dynamic between the passengers and crew is completely reconfigured.
First things first: there is a long seasickness scene that I simply cannot handle. The slow buildup to it is bad enough, with a few queasy passengers struggling at a lavish dinner of increasingly stomach-churning cuisine. But once the first person starts throwing up and quickly sets others off, it’s absolutely nightmarish. It goes on forever, and the only way I could keep watching the film was by taking my eyes off the screen entirely and doing something else until it was finally over. I get that there’s some thematic point to it, since the crew calmly keeps doing their jobs and being gently reassuring/accommodating as the tidal wave of puking passengers continues to grow, but it’s horrendous. Call me soft if you want, I don’t care. It’s awful, and my opinion of the film as a whole will be forever colored by this scene.
Apocalyptic vomiting aside, I really like the dynamic here. Writer/director Ruben Östlund, who snagged the film’s other two Oscar nominations, does a fantastic job setting up the interplay between the passengers and crew. On the passenger side, we have folks like the model and his influencer girlfriend(?), the friendly arms dealer, the woman who all the other passengers patronize because she’s had a stroke that affects her mobility and language production. The crew includes a tireless cruise director, a constantly shit-on cleaning woman, and an irritated chef. They’re led, not by the captain, who prefers to drink in his quarters, but by the cruise director, who puts up with every fussy complaint and inordinate request.
There’s a moment early in the cruise where a passenger insists that the crew “switch roles” with them, urging the crew to relax and go swimming. Despite this woman probably thinking this is a good deed on her part, it’s still utterly reflective of a situation where the passengers have all the power. The crew has “fun” by being forced to go down a waterslide for the passengers’ entertainment, after repeatedly insisting they can’t, leaving the chef to wonder what the passengers will think of their dinner being delayed when all his staff are sent off to swim. This supposed reversal of roles is entirely superficial.
The disaster that occurs midway through the film, however, prompts a true reversal. Suddenly, skill matters more than wealth and there’s no time for anyone to be pampered. As the situations turns on a dime, Östlund offers us a fine examination of dark class satire.
Other than Woody Harrelson, who plays the captain with rough humor, I’m not familiar with the rest of the cast. All of them, though, inhabit their parts well, with the standouts being Dolly De Leon as Abigail, the fierce cleaning woman, and Vicki Berlin as Paula, the unflappable cruise director.
Warnings
Sexual content, scenes of violence, gross-out humor, language, drinking/smoking, disturbing images, and thematic elements.
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