It is described as "a tragic comedy or comic tragedy", and features five parallel stories with human group behaviour as the common theme.

[1] The film is notable for its long takes with no cuts within the scenes.

This is related to Östlund's background as a skiing film director, where a cut would only indicate failure.

[5] The independent stories were shot one at a time, meaning that many of the actors never met before the premiere.

[11] Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 74 out of 100, based on 9 critics, indicating generally favorable reviews.