Long earlier than Ruben Östlund’s darkish comedy Triangle of Sadness debuted on the 2022 Cannes Film Festival — the place it gained the distinguished Palme d’Or — it was apparent who’d wind up because the breakout character. Filipina star Dolly De Leon barely even reveals up within the movie’s first two acts, every damaged out with its personal title card and its personal distinct story. But De Leon’s character Abigail completely dominates the movie’s third act, whereas nonetheless remaining an enigmatic determine proper up by the movie’s last moments.

Abigail is strongly harking back 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. But whereas their triumphs and journeys are related, Marta’s backstory and motivations are clearer and extra centered in her film, whereas Abigail appears to return from nowhere. That’s very clearly intentional — however De Leon tells Polygon it didn’t hold her from developing together with her personal elaborate rationalization of who Abigail is and the place her energy comes from.

“I definitely had to create a backstory!” De Leon says. “If I’m going to embrace the mystery every time I do a job, I’m going to be so lost on set, and it’s gonna show. So I wrote a journal, talking about her history and what led her there, what made her the person she is. That really helped shape all her actions and justify why she said certain things in the film, or why she behaved in certain ways.”

Abigail’s secret historical past might also assist viewers resolve the best way to interpret the top of Triangle of Sadness, which writer-director Östlund (Force Majeure, The Square) leaves as a provocation for the viewers.

[Ed. note: Spoilers for Triangle of Sadness follow, including end spoilers after the final header.]

Who is Abigail and what does she do in Triangle of Sadness?

Photo: Fredrik Wenzel/Plattform Produktion

Östlund’s movie tells three linked tales that every focus totally on a unique set of characters. In the primary 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 friends due to their influencer standing. But 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.

In 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 do not know the best way to survive. Abigail, a cleaner and “toilet manager” from the yacht, emerges as the important thing to their survival, since she is aware of the best way to catch and clear fish, construct a fireplace, 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. In the method, Östlund makes it clear that the social order individuals so usually take without any consideration, with individuals commanding energy largely resulting from 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 talent, data, and expertise matter.

That section of the story particularly highlights the place of “OFWs,” or Overseas Filipino Workers, a well-established class of migrant staff dwelling and dealing outdoors their house nation, and infrequently taking menial working-class jobs no matter their training or previous work expertise. De Leon says OFWs had been a selected focus for Östlund in conceiving the movie.

“I think he wanted to see the OFWs’ lives from the lens of a person who is a passenger, someone from a place of privilege,” she says. “I think he wanted to keep it that way, because the focus really was the shifting of power. He wanted the OFWs in the beginning and the second act of the film to be coasting along, almost invisible characters, with no real presence, no weight. And you see how [Abigail] assumes a position of power, coming from a place of being invisible and nondescript.”

Where did Abigail come from?

Photo: NEON

Triangle of Sadness doesn’t say a lot about Abigail’s origins, however De Leon felt it was obligatory to offer the character extra depth to be able to make her extra genuine.

“I don’t know if all actors do this, but I do it,” she says. “I always have a character secret that only I know. And then I only reveal it once the film has been shown. While we’re working on it, on set, I would tell my co-actors [sing-songs] ‘I have a secret. I have a secret! I’ll never tell you! I’ll tell you after.’ And they’re like, ‘Yeah, me too, I have 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 lady with no youngsters, however that she stored a full journal about Abigail’s life that was solely for her personal growth.

“She definitely grew up by a lake or the ocean,” De Leon says. “She lived somewhere in Cavite, a province on the edge of Luzon, where I come from. I grew up in the city, so the closest I ever got to nature was dragonflies and butterflies. She grew up where her mother would go to a river and do their laundry there, by the running water, and Abigail would play with the other kids there, and catch fish and tadpoles. That’s why she got really good at fishing, because she started 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 arms. “I felt that had to come from a deeper source, from way back when she was really little. When you’re a child and you’re playing make-believe games, it gets really ingrained into your system, and you really believe it, and become really good at it. That’s what happened to her.”

De Leon particularly needed Abigail to be unattached, with nobody she wanted to get again house to, however that a part of the character additionally required cautious navigation. “The part where she has no children, she has no family, I had to make sure that was clear, and what circumstances led to her being a single woman,” she says. “Because that’s almost unheard of in the Philippines. We all have families, we’re all married. If we’re not, there has to be a really good solid reason.”

Her answer was to fill Abigail’s adolescence with tragedy, and causes to mistrust her employers and crave energy over them.

“She worked for a very rich family — she started as a teenager, when she was 16 or 17, because sometimes that’s how early we start working,” De Leon says.” “And the son had a relationship with her, without the knowledge of his parents. She got pregnant, and of course, she knew she couldn’t keep the baby. So she left the household.”

De Leon characterizes that relationship as “kind of abusive, in a way,” as a result of her lover had energy over her and was older, possibly 19 or so. “To her, it wasn’t abuse — she was really in love,” she says. “But 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 infant. 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 beloved betrayed her.

“So after that, she was very bitter about love, and she felt like a scorned woman. She didn’t ever want to fall in love again. That was a conscious decision she made. And that’s how strong she is, to make a decision like that and stick to it. That takes a lot of willpower and strength. So that’s why she doesn’t have a family.”

What does Abigail’s story imply for the top of Triangle of Sadness?

Photo: Fredrik Wenzel/Plattform Produktion

Triangle of Sadness 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 individuals on the island, Abigail will return to being a menial employee, and probably face authorized bother 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 presents the older lady a job as her assistant as soon as they return to civilization. It isn’t the sort 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 effectively?

“That question has been asked over and over again,” De Leon says, “but I never get tired of answering it, because it’s really very interesting to answer. It really depends on the day, on what my state of mind is, on where I am as a person. Of course when I was filming it, I had my own ending in mind. But once you put a character on screen, they’re immortalized, and their story can change depending on your interpretation. So it depends on the viewer, and it also depends on me.”

She says she’s watched the movie 3 times now, and he or she’s imagined a unique 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 previously, she’d reasonably individuals reply the query themselves. Her backstory would possibly 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 choice tougher — Abigail clearly comes with each a robust sense of ethical justice, and a burning starvation for vengeance. Which one prevails is as much as you.

Either method, De Leon hopes Triangle of Sadness conjures up viewers to “change the way they perceive people who they think are lower than them, or higher than them.”

“If any one person on that yacht had showed Abigail some measure of kindness, or some personal connection, I think her arc would have taken a totally different journey, a totally different spike on it,” she says. “So I hope viewers think about that, about adding a little personal touch, or some extra kindness to people that they encounter. It’s not even workers, it’s just being kind in general, to anyone. Why do we have to be kind to people in power only? I think kindness should reach every human being, because it should be our nature to be kind to each other, and not to be evil or violent.”

Triangle of Sadness debuted in U.S. theaters on Oct. 7 and is presently rolling out worldwide.