Swedish writer-director Ruben Ostlund takes modern society’s
temperature and finds it dangerously overheated in the madly
ambitious and frequently disquieting The Square. Following his
unnerving 2014 international hit Force Majeure with a work that
addresses some of the world’s pressing ills with very dark and
queasy comedy, Ostlund juggles quite a few balls here, arguably a
few too many to keep them all airborne for nearly two-and-a-half
hours; some significant cutting would unquestionably improve the
film’s critical and commercial prospects. But it’s still a potent,
disturbing work that explores the boundaries of political
correctness, artistic liberty and free speech in provocative ways
and should receive significant exposure internationally.
White liberal guilt is probably a relatively new phenomenon in
historically all-white Sweden, but the local version of that concept
is what drives much of the drama here. Waves of immigrants over the
last couple of decades have altered the face and dynamics of the
citizenry, giving rise to inequities, mistrust and fears more
familiar to other countries in the West.
Ostlund digs into the matter through the perspective of a
sophisticated, highly educated and instinctively liberal art museum
curator. Tall, good looking and tolerant as a matter of course, and
quite keen to remain on the cutting edge of artistic movements, the
no doubt not-accidentally-named Christian (Claes Bang, from Swedish
television’s The Bridge) is currently overseeing one project that
reflects his social concerns: It’s a space called The Square, a
sanctuary where anyone entering it is supposed to abide by
humanitarian values rooted in the Golden Rule and equal dignity for
all.
But it takes no time for things to go haywire. A bizarre public
incident in which he admirably protects a hysterical woman from an
angry man concludes with Christian finding that he’s had his phone
and wallet stolen in the process. Led to believe that the culprit
resides at a particular address in a dodgy part of town, he leaves
letters requesting his belongings’ return at each apartment in the
building. Lo and behold, he soon gets them back intact, and his
immediate reaction is to unload a lot of money on the first homeless
beggar he encounters.
So far-out is some of the stuff that goes on at the X-Royal Museum
that it momentarily looks as though the film will emerge as a
full-fledged comedy, but it’s the mix of mordant humor and sulfurous
weirdness that defines its true nature. Christian’s private life
remains little explored for a long while, until he finally engages
in a one-night stand with an American journalist (Elisabeth Moss),
earlier seen conducting an inept interview with him, who later
attempts to engage in a far more uncomfortable sort of probing; she
also seems to have a chimpanzee as a flat-mate.
Similarly long undisclosed is the existence of Christian’s two
daughters, who barely speak to him anyway once he’s forced to keep
them for a spell. But it’s a couple of the man’s young, cutting
edge-obsessed museum colleagues who end up causing him the most
trouble with behavior that casts the discussion of freedom of
expression versus social responsibility in the most vivid light.
Hovering over Christian throughout like a dark threatening cloud is
the lingering aftermath of the early robbery incident, which also
involves the spectre of racial and social prejudice. What’s perhaps
most impressive about Ostlund’s evolving style as a filmmaker and
social commentator is his compulsion to enrich every scene he
creates with a multitude of tones and nuances across the serio-comic
spectrum. He’s like a virtuoso chef driven to try increasingly wild
combinations of spices and ingredients; often the result is
terrific, once in a while it’s too much.
An arguable example of the latter is an out-of-nowhere set-piece,
featuring almost none of the main characters, in which a gala dinner
attended by mostly gray-haired crowd art patrons is theoretically
entertained by a wild, bare-chested man (the notable stunt
coordinator and “animal actor” Terry Notary) romping threateningly
through the dining hall. Good humored about the act at first, the
audience shortly comes to feel genuinely endangered, and the
director, with Notary’s great help, really cranks up the suspense.
But it goes on and on, to the point where you can only wonder what’s
become of the security guards, or even the wait staff, for this
elderly crowd. — Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter