Film of the Week: Triangle

If done right, mind bending films can make a huge impact and Triangle doesn’t pull any punches. Before the first minute is over, you’re already asking questions, but don’t worry, most of them are answered over the course of the movie, but with a good mind bending film, it can’t resist leaving you with a few unanswered mysteries to keep you awake at night.

Triangle centres around the main character, Jess (Melissa George), who is seemingly disconnected from the world. Her friends: Jack, Victor, Downey, Sally, and Greg, constantly finding her in her own world, and they are worried for her. As the story progresses, a casual sailing day turns into a disaster when a freak storm capsizes their boat. They’ve lost a friend of theirs, and all of them are experiencing shock. Jess still appears to be in her own world, even when a ship appears from out of the storm clouds. And the real mystery begins.

From this moment on, there will be spoilers to the film as I will give my opinion on how I believe the events are played out. This film is best watched when you don’t know what’s going to happen for maximum effect. If you have watched the film, then by all means keep reading.

Last warning because I won’t hold back anything… OK, here goes…

In order to get to my opinion and theory across, I will have to explain a large portion of the film at first in order to set the scene properly.

The person who we see peering over the edge of the boat was the person who tried to kill them all. It was sudden, questions were set up, and the film would spend the rest of its time answering them. After the first full loop had ended with Jess knocking the killer overboard and then realizing that she is the person we see peering over the boat at the beginning, the second loop had begun. Jess was seeing things from a different angle, but it didn’t play out the way I had expected. She did things differently to what the person who tried to kill them did, which didn’t start answering anything, but only created more questions.

During the second loop is when things become the most puzzling due to Jess’s unexpected actions which is essentially changing what happened previously. “Break the pattern, get off the ship”. Sounds logical and so maybe the we don’t need any questions explained as long as Jess breaks the loop and saves the day. During loop 2, we see Jess meet herself, and fails to kill herself so that the pattern is truly broken, allowing loop-one’s Jess to run off. This created one of two of the biggest questions in the entire film. The moment we see Jess become the person we see on the ship at the beginning, it was obvious that she would become the person who’s trying to kill them all, and the answer to why she decided to do that would be explained during her experience of being that person we see. During loop 2 when everything has been changed, we still see the killer running around the boat trying to kill everyone on board, which means there are now three versions of Jess running around the ship. Loop 1 Jess, loop 2 Jess, and… loop 3 Jess?

The fact that Jess is the killer is confirmed when we see her take off her mask to speak with Downey and Sally. She tells them to go into a room where she then proceeds to… well, kill them. So it can be assumed by this point that loop 2 Jess will become the person we see ushering Downey and Sally into a cabin room. Which can only mean that Loop 2 is meant to happen the way it does in order for Jess to become the killer.

Well, not quite. We actually see Jess become the killer we see in loop 1. She doesn’t stab Downey and Sally at all. She copies the actions she saw previously and shoots them, which ultimately leads to being knocked overboard by Jess from loop 1.

OK, well, that must mean that the killer, who we learn is Jess must climb back on board and becomes the person we see stabbing Downey and Sally during loop 2. Makes sense. Unfortunately, it didn’t work like that. We actually see Jess waking up after being washed ashore. We don’t see any flashbacks whatsoever regarding her climbing back on board, and she isn’t going to go back now, not when she needs to get back to her son, and that’s when we discover that she has gone back to the morning when they were getting ready to go sailing.

When we’re watching Jess watching herself and her son get ready for the day, we see a very important character trait in Jess during this moment and that’s her inability to keep her temper from overflowing. She lashes out at her son. Jess from loop 3 who is watching all of this hates what she’s doing and so tries to sort it out by killing her past-self so that she can be a better mum, all with the intentions of getting as far away as possible so that she doesn’t get trapped in any more loops. These series of events answer the first few questions we have at the beginning. We also get the answer as to why she appears to be so disconnected from the world.

Trying to get away from it all only provokes the beginning of the first loop. She loses her son in a car crash and she figures that the only way to get him back is to go through the loops again in order to be the person who just seen murdering her past-self… again.

And so the loops restart and the film ends. And the question as to where that Jess we see stabbing Downey and Sally is never answered. That’s a rather big moment in the film. Another Jess running around the ship. It doesn’t make any sense, but I do have a theory.

I believe that the film doesn’t end on loop 1, but instead at the beginning of loop 4. When we see her board the yacht again at the end of the film, we know that she knows exactly what’s going to happen because she has just gone through it all, which is why she appears to be disconnected. She knows that once she boards that ship, she’s going to have to go through those three loops again. But not necessarily. It has been proven that she can change the events that happened before during loop 2. So, upon knowing what’s going to happen and that she wants her son back because that is all she is thinking about at this point, and that’s when everyone is dead the loops begin again, so all she has to do is make sure the loops will end in order to get back to her son. When she boards the ship during loop 4, she enters mid-way through loop 2 when everything has been changed, allowing her to do what she can to make sure she is knocked overboard by her other-self. Unfortunately, things don’t go the way she had planned and instead of being knocked overboard, she’s killed by her other-self. We see this at the end of loop 2.

However, if she were to board the ship during loop 2, then there would be two copies of her friends as well as three copies of her running around. Well, it's safe to say that because she knows what's going to happen, and all she wants is her son back, she quickly kills the people she's with in order to continue making sure the rest of the loops continue so she's then knocked over board, and because there are already a copy of each of her friends on the ship, the loop doesn't end preventing another copy of each of her friends to board. 

Now, I know what you’re thinking. At the beginning of the film, she doesn’t know what’s going on. She’s disconnected, yes, but she doesn’t know what’s going to happen next because she questions everything that we do. I do have a theory for that as well. Amnesia. Loops one and four start off the exact same way, but ends differently. Loop 1 starts off with her being all disconnected from having just lost her son. She boards a yacht with the intentions of changing things, only to suffer from amnesia during the boat ride, therefore starting loop 1 all over again. She then goes through the three loops, ends up being washed ashore, then after losing her son, she boards the yacht to try and save him, starting off loop 4, which ends up with her being killed at the end of the loop, which is actually the end of loops 2 and 4 at the same time.

This brings up another question that I know you’re asking and that’s: If she dies at the end of loop 4, then how does she go back round to loop 1. When we see her at the beginning of the film, we don’t know that she knows what’s going on, yet somehow she appears to not know what’s going on.

Fair point. But I can answer that one as well. She isn’t killed at the end of loop 4, just knocked out. She washes ashore, with slight amnesia. She can’t remember everything that happened, but knows that she must go to her son. Loop 4 therefore starts the same way as loop 1 but ends the same way as loop 3. She loses her son once more and figures out that the only way to try and save him is to board that yacht again. Loop 5 has begun, but upon her trip on the yacht, her amnesia kicks in properly and she forgets everything that has happened, and she is then appears to be disconnected from the world not because she knows what’s going to happen, but because she feels as if she knows what’s going to happen next but can’t remember, which is why she feels as if she’s seen that corridor once before. And so loop 5 begins the same way as loops 1 and 4, but ends with the beginning of loop 1 when on the yacht.

And that concludes my theory on the film, Triangle. I hope it makes sense. If you think I've just over-complicated things or you have a different interpretation altogether, then please let me know because I am interested in what you have to say.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)