LogFAQs > #956454884

so I watched Triangle last night and... I have pretty mixed thoughts. It kinda reminds me of Vivarium in a lot of ways, which was another movie that I thought had some really interesting and surreal concepts orchestrated in bizarre and intriguing ways... that ultimately was held back a little by inconsistencies in its own logic and writing and inconsistent performances.So back to Triangle, I've seen a lot of praise for the main performance of Melissa George but honestly I wasn't feeling it. Some of it she does fine; particularly the aggression, but in the slower moments when she's trying to act unsettled or frightened, I thought it came off as overly forced and melodramatic. It doesn't help that she has to carry the entire film because every other character is one-note and awful (especially Sally, goddamn is she just irritating every time she's on screen) and I just don't think her performance was strong enough to carry it. Compare it to someone like Samara Weaving in Ready Or Not (another young woman thrown unexpectedly into a weird fantasy horror scenario in a fixed location she's unfamiliar with) and it's easier to define why one performance feels strong enough to carry it and the other doesn't.

The story itself was really interesting: from what I can gather, she was either given or willingly accepted an eternal punishment for accidentally killing herself and her autistic child, who she had abused, and now she's forced to relive that over and over. This is really cool, and there are some incredible scenes. In particular, two scenes really stick out to me as highlights: Sally crawling over to a section of boat where dozens of her corpses are gathered with similar wounds and Jess killing the abusive version of herself with a hammer. If more of the film was along this line, it would've done a lot better for me.

Some of it was a little cringeworthy though. In particular, the one Jess line, "My world is waiting for his mom to pick him up from school. Don't talk to me about MY WORLD" that repeats like 3 or 4 times in the film is just... not good. It's bad writing and delivered in a tone that doesn't match the scene. I also laughed out loud at Jess needing to copy down a note she found onto another sheet of paper to compare the handwriting, somehow being an adult who doesn't recognize her own handwriting.

Other things just really detract from the mysterious and wild puzzle plot it has going. Namely, inconsistencies in its own logic. Things like 1. some things showing up by the dozens, like the notes/bodies/dead birds, but other things (the bodies killed in the theater, the axe, the wrecked car, etc) resetting with each loop. 2. Jess making obvious mistakes like telling herself to "kill them all" despite already having lived that scene and knowing that doesn't work 3. the fact that we see her go through the entire process of getting on the boat -> pushing masked jess over after everyone is killed -> trying to stop the killings and failing -> becoming the masked killer -> washing up on the shore and starting the loop over. However, there are WAY more copies of everything in every scenario than what there should be if that's the entire loop. Similarly, things happen that the Jess we're following doesn't ever experience which doesn't make sense given that we witness the entire loop.

The issue with a movie like this, that breaks the laws of reality in order to set its own rules, is that when done right, this can lead to some of the most incredible fantasy/scifi/magicalrealism movies out there, but when they don't follow the rules that they themselves establish, it feels frustrating and incomplete

Overall I'm torn on how to rank or define my feelings, because it held itself back in a few essential spots, but what it did well it did really well.

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Khal Kirby, warlord of the Super Star Khalasar
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