Directed By Nat Faxon and Jim Rash

Starring – Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Will Ferrell, Miranda Otto

The Plot – Barely escaping an avalanche during a family ski vacation in the Alps, a married couple (Dreyfus, Ferrell) is thrown into disarray as they are forced to reevaluate their lives and how they feel about each other. Inspired by the motion picture FORCE MAJEURE by Ruben Östlund.

Rated R for adult language and some sexual material

POSITIVES

– Against type performances. Both Louis-Dreyfus and Ferrell take the reigns here by supplanting a healthy amount of dramatic enveloping, which allows both of them to break typecast and show a refreshingly abundant amount of depth to their registries. Together, they have an intentionally complete lack of chemistry, both romantically and comically, which fleshes out the dire despair in their storied marriage, but beyond that helps solidify this unavoidable tension that makes it suffocating for us the audience to endure. Julia steals the show as a mentally drained woman being asked to maintain her fair share of the family responsibilities, and Ferrell seizes the moment through a series of long-winded, loud-voiced diatribes that managed to feel effective without them feeling like the frequent shouting bursts that fill his comedies. Casting comic actors was the biggest thing that worried me about the film, but it turns out the constant professionalism of this duo constantly captivated, and made for an outline of marriage that felt very lived in and believable because of their constant dissension.

– Photographical balance. The shot composition for the film blew me away, and conjured up no shortage of versatility from Faxon and Rash, bringing forth their most visually ambitious feature film to date. For the exterior shots, there’s a lot of wide angles lenses being used to frame some breathtakingly gorgeous cinematography of the Alps. This is shot constantly to make the images feel like they have been virtually lifted from a resort pamphlet, all the while giving into the isolation of the family’s situation, which makes it inescapable. For interaction shots of the interior variety, we have a handheld selection of style, which I normally am not very fond of, but felt it worked here in making the audience feel like a member of the family, who is privy to not only the unraveling of dialogue exchanges, but also the anything but cohesive body language that tells the story long before the words do.

– Storied setting. I already mentioned the beauty of the Alps countryside, so I won’t go any further into that. However, the choice of crafting the film at a ski resort certainly plays into a continuous metaphor for this weekend of mayhem that envelopes the family whole. Like a snowball moving downhill, the angst gains more momentum with each passing moment, and builds to this abundance of histories and past incidents that each person wears like a wound of survival. Almost simultaneously as the resort sets off these controlled avalanches, the marriage takes a turn for the worst, and soon the amount of weight that is prescribed on both feels like they are on a track of inevitability that sifts through all of the claustrophobia that forces them together. It’s cool to see when the thematic and presentational aspects of the film merge together, and allows each to nearly mirror what the other one is presenting, giving us a flourishing reminder of the mental capacity that overtakes every decision.

– Strong pacing. At 85 brisk minutes, “Downhill” would lend itself better to being a Netflix released film, but as it stands the flowing of the storytelling combined with the script’s nature to cram as many events as possible during the film’s first half is something that makes this as easy of a sit as you’re going to have, even if you end up disliking the movie. It helps greatly when a comedy doesn’t overthink what it rightfully is, as movies like “Sisters” or “Just Go With It” have done with two hour run times. Instead, “Downhill” is paced terrifically, breezing through a first act that feels nearly non-existent, a second act that gravitates to the character defining moments, and a third act that harvests so much uncertainty for the future of this family.

NEGATIVES

– Tonal incoherence. “Force Majeure” was an unabashed drama. There was no mistake about it. Where “Downhill” ultimately deprives itself is in the dramatic muscle, which is interrupted so frequently by frequent outbursts of unnecessary humor to soil it all. You’re witnessing a family’s demise, yet every so often a quirky foreign character with an accent, or a burst of physical humor will rear its ugly head, and completely compromise what was great about the scene in play, where this family is confronting the demons that they each wear on their faces. Because of such, much of the film feels dragged in two directions by its two directors, and never finds a comfortable medium where it can prosper while feeling like one cohesive production. The comedy in the film did provide a few laughs of breath in between these tense moments, but for my money happen too often and take far too much engagement down with them.

– Meandering storytelling. Part of what I loved about “Force Majeure” was the attention to subtlety in its storytelling, that allowed the audience to convey instead of taste. What I mean by this is so much of “Downhill’s” problem is it lacks such subtlety, instead choosing to hone in on the obvious of what’s wrong, and feeling like the worst kind of derivative dialogue that a pen can muster. Because of such, this is certainly not a film that rewards those who pay attention, and it’s certainly not one that is nearly as smart as it tries so hard to be. It’s a spoon-fed practical piece of pretentiousness that allows you to sleep through half of it, and still know everything that’s going on. A cliff notes version of a much greater, meaningful film that it never comes close to skiing on the same course of.

– Detestable characters. While on the subject of differences from its predecessor, lets bring up one more. This film doesn’t possess one character between this family who I embraced or felt inspired in hoping they find better for themselves. With “Majeure”, it was clearly a tale of female inspiration cast against a smothering of toxic masculinity, and how such plays on a family. Here, everyone is wrong, even if some are clearly worse than others. Ferrell was downright hated by me. He isn’t a father even in the loosest term of the definition, and completely lacks any of the intuition or charm that would make him even remotely appealing to any woman walking the Earth. Dreyfus, while better than Ferrell, also leaves her kids when they need her the most. This makes her no better on this spectrum, but could make her worse when you consider she tango’s with cheating on Ferrell throughout the film. The kids are downright Americanized brats, whining every few seconds about wanting to watch a movie in their hotel room instead of the thousands of dollars their parents have shelled out for this once in a lifetime vacation. These were the people I was asked to spend an hour and a half with, and like Dreyfus, I constantly felt like relieving myself from every single one of them.

– Characterization. Perhaps the biggest difference from the original film was in the complete lack of time dedicated to the child characters, which should be nearly as engaging as their adult co-stars. With the exception of the film using them when they are absolutely required for the importance of the scenario, the film doesn’t have a single instance from their point of views, or any kind of moments when they are on screen without their parents. This is important because in the original film the kids are used as this measure of conscience mostly for the father character, to gauge how his distancing plays a very adverse effect on them. You see instances of that here, but never anything that succeeds a facial resonation, and certainly not something that documents the third and pivotal side of this developing situation. If you need proof of what I said, look at the film’s poster. The kids are nowhere to be found.

– Throwaway scenes. There are many of these. One such instance involves an entire set-up revolving around a woman at the lodge hitting on Ferrell’s character, only for her to realize she got it wrong, and actually meant another more handsome and younger man sitting nearby Ferrell. This leads to a scene at the bar where a drunk Ferrell attacks the man (If you can call it that), and it goes nowhere sentimentally or meaningful. This is a perfect metaphor for many scenes throughout the film; nothing instances that feel like gnats buzzing around the movie’s head, only for it to slap them away before moving on. They lack tension, build-up, payoff, or any sembelance of meaning for why they were included in the first place. It’s strange that a film even this short and with this much material to borrow from with its predecessor that there’s still no shortage of pointless scenes that plague its script.

– Flat ending. Not only disappointing in its climatic struggle, but also unresolved in its essential conflict. This is an ending that borrows a couple of aspects from its predecessor, but changes everything that deals with where it leaves this family, leaving us with an anti-climatic ending that doesn’t feel necessarily earned or remotely satisfying for where it leaves this family. It all feels like a weak-ended cop-out that only further enhances the reminder of the time you wasted on this movie, and solidifies just how uninspired this pointless remake truly was.

My Grade: 4/10 or D