The Square

Director: Ruben Ostlund

2017, Sweden

 

(Sweden, 2017) Written and directed by Ruben Ostlund. Cast: Claes Bang, Elisabeth Moss, Dominic West, Terry Notary, Christopher Laesso, Annica Liljeblad.

Elizabeth Moss has had a banner year, starring in The Handmaiden’s Tale and Jane Campion’s Top of the Lake on TV; and playing an American journalist in the Swedish film awarded the 2017 Palme díOr for Best Picture at the Cannes Film Festival. Moss plays a nervy partner to the main character (Claes Bang), the director of a prestigious museum. As the film opens, all of cultured Stockholm is heralding a new art installation: a square drawn in front of the museum, meant to serve as a utopian oasis. At the same time, a non-Utopian robbery takes place, and director Ruben Ostlund, known as ‘Ingmar Bergman with a genius for suspense,’ plays out the hypocrisy as a high-stakes parallel of the growing gap between the haves and have-nots. 142 min
“The Square is both outlandishly funny and biting, asking: What does it take to jog the upper classes out of their comfortable insularity?” – Stephanie Zacharek, A Report From Cannes.