In the wake of Parasite, awards season has been filling up with movies about how awful the upper class is No images? [Click here](
ID=167008;size=700x180;setID=527264;uid={EMAIL}7192588;click=template_daily_awards_wrap_up [Daily Awards Wrap Up] December 21, 2022
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Hey, Oscar Movies: We Get It, Rich People Are Bad In the wake of “Parasite,” awards season has been filling up with movies about how awful the upper class is
[- - -] By Lena Wilson [Glass Onion - Triangle of Sadness - The Menu] “Glass Onion” (Netflix), “Triangle of Sadness” (Neon), “The Menu” (Searchlight) Nearly three years ago, âParasiteâ swept awards season. Bong Joon-hoâs sardonic masterpiece followed the Kim family, a tribe of basement-dwelling con artists who wormed their way into a wealthy household and wound up with blood on their hands. Perhaps as a direct result, we now find ourselves in an awards season glutted with eat-the-rich narratives. That might be fun â even revolutionary â if these films had more to offer than shallow drollery. Ruben Ãstlundâs âTriangle of Sadness,â Mark Mylodâs âThe Menuâ and Rian Johnsonâs âGlass Onionâ are all stacked with prime talent and featured among this yearâs For Your Consideration fodder, and all three films lampoon the garishly wealthy. But where âParasiteâ used fleshed-out commonfolk as foils to the heinous elite, todayâs films are more interested in making a spectacle of wealth than they are in actually developing their working class heroes. âGlass Onionâ is perhaps the worst offender, if only because it pales so drastically in comparison to its predecessor, Johnsonâs 2019 hit âKnives Out.â Where âKnives Outâ followed an immigrant nurse named Marta (Ana de Armas) as she was sucked into a cartoonishly rich familyâs homicidal antics, âGlass Onionâ centers on the flamboyant detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig). Blanc, who helped Marta out of a pickle in the first film, is unquestionably delightful. This is not your average gumshoe â Blanc is an occasionally bumbling clotheshorse who sounds like Foghorn Leghorn. But heâs hardly an everyman: âGlass Onionâ introduces him relaxing in his beautiful terrace apartment, at the tail end of a Zoom session with Natasha Lyonne, Stephen Sondheim, Angela Lansbury and Kareem Abdul-Jabar. When a third act twist finally throws a plebe into the filmâs narrative, itâs far too little too late. Weâve spent most of the film watching Blanc side-eye the upper crust, which feels a bit like watching a cheetah mock a pack of leopards. Though it attempts much more nuance, âTriangle of Sadnessâ meets similar pitfalls. Though it features an ensemble cast, the film most closely follows Carl (Harris Dickinson, âBeach Ratsâ) and Yaya (Charlbi Dean, âBlack Lightningâ), two models/influencers who are living an Instagram-friendly sham. Theyâre together because they make a good-looking couple, not because theyâre actually in love. Unlike their fat-cat shipmates, they donât seem to have much money of their own, though their looks keep them awash in luxury. They end up on the filmâs ill-fated cruise because a company offered it to them for free. They project wealth and power to their social media followers, but they are the filmâs most pitiable characters. Ãstlund rather unsubtly drives this point home when, in later scenes, Carl becomes a kept boy to Abigail (Dolly de Leon, âUnconditionalâ), a member of the shipâs housekeeping staff whose official title was, apparently, âtoilet manager.â ID=167008;size=300x250;setID=523257;uid={EMAIL}7192588;click=template_daily_awards_wrap_up Ãstlundâs decision to humanize Carl (and, to some extent, Yaya) above every other character is as interesting as it is vexing. Sure, he is harmed by the looks-obsessed culture from which he also benefits. (The title phrase, âtriangle of sadness,â is spoken aloud by a casting agent who derides his lack of Botox.) It is deeply sad that he has nothing to offer anyone beyond his body. But it is bizarre to see the film paint Abigail with the same broad, sociopathic brush as the fashion industry. Of course, in the real world, oneâs class does not inherently dictate their morality, but this is Ruben Ãstlundâs world, where a Russian fertilizer tycoon pulls the jewels off of his wifeâs half-naked, vomit-and-sewage-covered corpse. If Abigail is as conniving as her wealthy overlords, it would be nice to at least know why. âThe Menuâ is the only one of these three films to sport a working-class protagonist, but that doesnât make it any more successful. A pack of shady, obscenely wealthy foodies trot out to the private island of the renowned Chef Slowik (Ralph Fiennes), where he treats them to a night of molecular gastronomy and murder. Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy) throws a wrench into his plan as the unexpected guest of Tyler (Nicholas Hoult). Slowik immediately senses that Margot is an everyman â just like he used to be â and cryptically tries to give her a way out of his vengeance plot. Though we learn smatterings of Margotâs backstory as the skimpy plot develops, who she is doesnât matter so much as what the puppeteering Slowik thinks of her. The attention-grabbing stuff here isnât coming from Margot. âThe Menu,â directed by âSuccessionâ helmer Mark Mylod and co-written by The Onion scribes Seth Reiss and Will Tracy, mainly entertains because Slowik is putting on such a show for the simpering guests he supposedly hates. Itâs more than a little ironic to see such shallow challenges of upper-class exploitation mounted over and over again during awards season. As we all prepare to dissect which movie stars were the best dressed or worst behaved, as critics like me contemplate what to do with yet another round of studio freebies, itâs only fitting that we not look too closely at the tycoons around which it all revolves. In these films, excess is not so much monstrous as it is just plain silly. And if youâre gunning for an Oscar or the Palme dâOr, that toothless take is less likely to offend your peers. Read more coverage of awards season [HERE.](
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