Lengthy earlier than Ruben Östlund’s darkish comedy Triangle of Unhappiness debuted on the 2022 Cannes Movie Competition — the place it gained the celebrated Palme d’Or — it was apparent who’d wind up because the breakout character. Filipina star Dolly De Leon barely even exhibits up within the movie’s first two acts, every damaged out with its personal title card and its personal distinct story. However De Leon’s character Abigail completely dominates the movie’s third act, whereas nonetheless remaining an enigmatic determine proper up by way of the movie’s closing moments.
Abigail is strongly paying homage to Ana de Armas’ character Marta in Rian Johnson’s Knives Out, one other soft-spoken immigrant working for highly effective, wealthy individuals who underestimate and overlook her till occasions meet up with all of them. However whereas their triumphs and journeys are comparable, Marta’s backstory and motivations are clearer and extra centered in her film, whereas Abigail appears to come back from nowhere. That’s very clearly intentional — however De Leon tells Polygon it didn’t preserve her from arising together with her personal elaborate clarification of who Abigail is and the place her energy comes from.
“I positively needed to create a backstory!” De Leon says. “If I’m going to embrace the thriller each time I do a job, I’m going to be so misplaced on set, and it’s gonna present. So I wrote a journal, speaking about her historical past and what led her there, what made her the individual she is. That basically helped form all her actions and justify why she mentioned sure issues within the movie, or why she behaved in sure methods.”
Abigail’s secret historical past can also assist viewers resolve the right way to interpret the top of Triangle of Unhappiness, which writer-director Östlund (Power Majeure, The Sq.) leaves as a provocation for the viewers.
[Ed. note: Spoilers for Triangle of Sadness follow, including end spoilers after the final header.]
Who’s Abigail and what does she do in Triangle of Unhappiness?
Östlund’s movie tells three linked tales that every focus totally on a special set of characters. Within the first act, trend fashions Carl (Harris Dickinson) and Yaya (Charlbi Dean) navigate their unstable, manipulative relationship. Act 2 strikes the motion aboard a luxurious yacht, the place Carl and Yaya have been invited as all-expenses-paid company due to their influencer standing. However they’re minor characters within the story, which focuses extra on the yacht’s wealthy, entitled passengers, the drunken mishandling of the boat by an incompetent captain (Woody Harrelson), and the breakdown of order throughout a violent storm.
Within the third act, a few of the yacht’s complement, together with Carl and Yaya, find yourself collectively on a distant island the place they don’t know the right way to survive. Abigail, a cleaner and “bathroom supervisor” from the yacht, emerges as the important thing to their survival, since she is aware of the right way to catch and clear fish, construct a hearth, and forage for different meals. She shortly takes ruthless benefit of her new energy, declaring herself captain of the island and forcing the opposite passengers to obey her. Within the course of, Östlund makes it clear that the social order folks so typically take without any consideration, with folks commanding energy largely on account of their wealth (or magnificence or fame, for Carl and Maya), is a well-maintained fiction that quickly unravels in a state of affairs the place precise ability, information, and expertise matter.
That section of the story particularly highlights the place of “OFWs,” or Abroad Filipino Staff, a well-established class of migrant staff residing and dealing exterior their dwelling nation, and sometimes taking menial working-class jobs no matter their training or previous work expertise. De Leon says OFWs have been a specific focus for Östlund in conceiving the movie.
“I believe he wished to see the OFWs’ lives from the lens of an individual who’s a passenger, somebody from a spot of privilege,” she says. “I believe he wished to maintain it that method, as a result of the main target actually was the shifting of energy. He wished the OFWs at first and the second act of the movie to be coasting alongside, virtually invisible characters, with no actual presence, no weight. And also you see how [Abigail] assumes a place of energy, coming from a spot of being invisible and nondescript.”
The place did Abigail come from?
Triangle of Unhappiness doesn’t say a lot about Abigail’s origins, however De Leon felt it was crucial to present the character extra depth as a way to make her extra genuine.
“I don’t know if all actors do that, however I do it,” she says. “I all the time have a personality secret that solely I do know. After which I solely reveal it as soon as the movie has been proven. Whereas we’re engaged on it, on set, I’d inform my co-actors [sing-songs] ‘I’ve a secret. I’ve a secret! I’ll by no means inform you! I’ll inform you after.’ And so they’re like, ‘Yeah, me too, I’ve a secret!’”
Her headcanon about Abigail was even a secret from Östlund. De Leon says he allowed her numerous freedom with the character, together with making her a single girl with no kids, however that she stored a full journal about Abigail’s life that was solely for her personal growth.
“She positively grew up by a lake or the ocean,” De Leon says. “She lived someplace in Cavite, a province on the sting of Luzon, the place I come from. I grew up within the metropolis, so the closest I ever obtained to nature was dragonflies and butterflies. She grew up the place her mom would go to a river and do their laundry there, by the operating water, and Abigail would play with the opposite youngsters there, and catch fish and tadpoles. That’s why she obtained actually good at fishing, as a result of she began early in life.”
De Leon says it’s apparent that Abigail wasn’t from a fishing household, as a result of she doesn’t use nets or boats to catch fish, simply her naked palms. “I felt that needed to come from a deeper supply, from method again when she was actually little. Once you’re a baby and also you’re taking part in make-believe video games, it will get actually ingrained into your system, and you actually consider it, and change into actually good at it. That’s what occurred to her.”
De Leon particularly wished Abigail to be unattached, with nobody she wanted to get again dwelling to, however that a part of the character additionally required cautious navigation. “The half the place she has no kids, she has no household, I needed to ensure that was clear, and what circumstances led to her being a single girl,” she says. “As a result of that’s virtually remarkable within the Philippines. All of us have households, we’re all married. If we’re not, there needs to be a very good strong purpose.”
Her answer was to fill Abigail’s youth with tragedy, and causes to mistrust her employers and crave energy over them.
“She labored for a really wealthy household — she began as an adolescent, when she was 16 or 17, as a result of generally that’s how early we begin working,” De Leon says.” “And the son had a relationship together with her, with out the information of his mother and father. She obtained pregnant, and naturally, she knew she couldn’t preserve the newborn. So she left the family.”
De Leon characterizes that relationship as “type of abusive, in a method,” as a result of her lover had energy over her and was older, perhaps 19 or so. “To her, it wasn’t abuse — she was actually in love,” she says. “However he didn’t take care of her. He simply used her. And when she left the family, she obtained a miscarriage, and that’s how she misplaced the newborn. After that, as she grew up, as she matured, she checked out that have on reflection, and realized that he took benefit of her, and that the person he liked betrayed her.
“So after that, she was very bitter about love, and he or she felt like a scorned girl. She didn’t ever need to fall in love once more. That was a aware resolution she made. And that’s how sturdy she is, to decide like that and stick with it. That takes numerous willpower and energy. In order that’s why she doesn’t have a household.”
What does Abigail’s story imply for the top of Triangle of Unhappiness?
Triangle of Unhappiness closes on a pregnant second, with Yaya and Abigail alone collectively. They’ve simply found that what they thought was a abandoned, remoted island is definitely a spa and resort. As quickly as they make contact with the opposite folks on the island, Abigail will return to being a menial employee, and presumably face authorized hassle over how she handled her former bosses on the island. So she picks up a rock and sneaks up on Yaya, clearly planning to homicide her after which return to the others and lie about what they found.
It’s unclear whether or not Yaya is totally oblivious to the hazard, however together with her again to Abigail, she gives the older girl a job as her assistant as soon as they return to civilization. It isn’t the type of energy Abigail has been having fun with, however it isn’t homicide and lies, both. Abigail hesitates, and the movie ends.
Given De Leon’s elaborate fantasies about Abigail’s previous, does she have fantasies about her future after the top of the film as properly?
“That query has been requested over and over,” De Leon says, “however I by no means get uninterested in answering it, as a result of it’s actually very attention-grabbing to reply. It actually will depend on the day, on what my mind-set is, on the place I’m as an individual. After all after I was filming it, I had my very own ending in thoughts. However as soon as you place a personality on display screen, they’re immortalized, and their story can change relying in your interpretation. So it will depend on the viewer, and it additionally will depend on me.”
She says she’s watched the movie thrice now, and he or she’s imagined a special ending every time. She’s additionally heard from followers of the film who spin out much more elaborate endings. So whereas she says she’s shared a few of her theories prior to now, she’d reasonably folks reply the query themselves. Her backstory may assist viewers interpret what Abigail does subsequent, given the place she got here from and the way she feels about it. It may additionally make their resolution more durable — Abigail clearly comes with each a powerful sense of ethical justice, and a burning starvation for vengeance. Which one prevails is as much as you.
Both method, De Leon hopes Triangle of Unhappiness conjures up viewers to “change the best way they understand individuals who they suppose are decrease than them, or increased than them.”
“If anyone individual on that yacht had confirmed Abigail some measure of kindness, or some private connection, I believe her arc would have taken a completely totally different journey, a completely totally different spike on it,” she says. “So I hope viewers take into consideration that, about including somewhat private contact, or some additional kindness to those that they encounter. It’s not even staff, it’s simply being form generally, to anybody. Why do we have now to be form to folks in energy solely? I believe kindness ought to attain each human being, as a result of it must be our nature to be form to one another, and to not be evil or violent.”
Triangle of Unhappiness debuted in U.S. theaters on Oct. 7 and is at the moment rolling out worldwide.