Short Review: 'Triangle' (2009)

To really enjoy a so-called ‘mind-fuck’ movie, one must relinquish a certain degree of logic and common judgment from their brain before even contemplating a viewing. While frustrating for many, most cinemagoers tend to relish this breed of toyfull narrative play and often spend hours tenaciously debating the intricacies of every conceivable character coil and systematic symbol on screen, some might say to the point of absurdity. While not quite in the same league as movies like Jacob’s Ladder, Requiem for a Dream or Memento, Christopher Smith’s third genre offering, Triangle, is admittedly still a meticulously (if somewhat predictably) constructed web of intrigue that only occasionally suffers from the headache of its own cerebral webbing.

The struggling mother of an autistic son, Jess (Melissa George) is invited by her friend Greg (Michael Dorman) on a weekend yacht cruise with a group of friends across the seas of the Atlantic Ocean in an effort to help get her mind off things. During the sail a vicious storm appears out of nowhere and capsizes the relatively small vessel, leaving them stranded and without help until an enormous cruise ship suddenly appears from behind the fog and allows them to board. All is not as it seems, however, when the group fail to locate any passengers or crew and eventually one-by-one they start disappearing, the evidence of which somehow implicating Jess as the cause of all the calamity…and then some.

At the risk of saying too much, director Smith may have shot himself in the creative foot by choosing to title this film Triangle. While it may start out as a simple terror-on-the-high-seas thriller with a few psychological undertones, the movie’s motis operandi quickly becomes apparent by the end of the first act (if not earlier) and consequently sends the story in an admittedly predictable direction, only occasionally deferring one’s attention from the inevitable final revelation that awaits its ill fated protagonist. Strangely enough though, the build up to the largely foreseeable conclusion is so meticulously constructed and executed by Smith and co. that you still find yourself happily surrendering over all willpower to the movie’s twist-a-minute aesthetic and Hitchcockian suspense tropes, even if you’ve seen them all countless times before. This compulsive watchability is due in no small part to Triangle’s air-tight screenplay and painstaking attention to detail with regard to every conceivable plot point illustrated throughout its sharp ninety nine minute running time.

Being a film that prides its narrative focus on the mysteries unbound within the human mind, Triangle is also never overly concerned with building a repertoire of particularly interesting characters, nor is it preoccupied with providing a precise reasoning behind the events that unfold before you. What it is concerned with, however, is the implementation of reoccurring motifs, visual cues and a highly specific story structure that (in more ways than one) help aid the movie in its sneaky attempts to keep the audience consistently off-guard and out of the loop. With this in mind it is safe to assume that while relatively resolute in its logical transparency there is also a certain degree of ambiguity inherent with regard to the exact origin of the puzzle being played out and how it could have occurred in the first place. But after all, that’s where the fun comes into play!

Despite its familiarity, Triangle is arguably Christopher Smith’s most accomplished horror venture thus far, boasting an impressive confidence and control over the medium rarely evidenced in contemporary genre efforts. Leading lady George delivers the paranoid goods in a solid central performance, as does her male counterpart Dorman and the rest of the hapless party bunch. It’s also just a good old-fashioned thriller that has no problem in keeping you gripped from the first frame right up until the bloody termination of its final seaside traveler. Bon Voyage, indeed.



Dir: Christopher Smith
Writer: Christopher Smith
Cast: Melissa George, Michael Dorman, Joshua McIvor, Jack Taylor
Country: UK/Australia
Run Time: 99mins
Rating: MA15+