Poking fun at the absurdity of celebrity is of course never unwarranted but it also frequently comes across as a little fatiguing. The target is easier than ever and too often, so are the jokes, incisive satire proving hard to nail when the subjects have become so indistinguishably cartoonish. The same has become true of the wealthy in general and recent films that have tried to lampoon either have felt lazy, pointing and laughing at something that’s stopped being funny a long time ago.
There’s an initial kick then to the new film from the French music video provocateur turned film-maker Romain Gavras, who finds a more precise section of the VIP area to ridicule: performative environmentalists. As the world continues to burn, artists and those who use that word loosely, have attached themselves to the crisis whether it be to make themselves seem worthier to their fanbase or to make terrible art in its name. There’s both here in Sacrifice, a biting comedy thriller that lands us at another meaningless gala, set inside a remote location in Greece. We arrive with troubled movie star Mike (Chris Evans), panicking over his perceived hair loss (his assistant, played by Sam Richardson, assures him that another trip to Turkey is easily scheduled) and eager to move past a rather embarrassing viral clip of him ranting with a flame-thrower at the premiere of his action vehicle Octavius: The Last Centurion. He’s technically there to do good for the environment but he’s really just there to do good for his image, something that suffers a setback when he sees Bezos-styled billionaire Ben (Vincent Cassel) showing a Daily Mail TikTok of his freakout to others. Ben’s wife Gloria (Salma Hayek) is a pop star whose latest album is designed to be from the perspective of a flood.
