Based up on the film "Force Majeure" by Ruben Ostlund
Screenplay Written by Jesse Armstrong and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
Directed by Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
**** (four stars)
RATED R
Ah...the trouble with coming attractions trailers.
As much as there is an art and artistry of creating a motion picture, I woud greatly argue that there is the same yet decidedly different art and artistry of creating an effective coming attractions trailer. To be able to take all of the existing material from a film, dissect it, re-contextualize it and then, almost magically convey a sense of what the full experience of the entire movie will approximate thus attracting an audience to come and see it once the film in question is released...and then, to perform this feat in under a three minute running time. I do not envy those cinematic magicians whatsoever, especially as I think about the actual process of deciding what to show and how much and even then, what overall tone does the trailer strike.
In the case of Nat Faxon and Jim Rash's "Downhill," I would not be surprised at all if audiences that have ventured out to see the film based upon its trailer (and its stars) exited the film in a state of confused depression for this film is not anything that could be described as a "romp" as it is completely unlike anything as presented in the film's own trailer. This film, itself a remake of a Swedish film, while containing some funny moments as well as pointed cultural satire, is in actuality a drama that makes for boldly uncomfortable viewing while also containing two searing leading performances and a storyline and screenplay that dives deeply into the dark heart of a marriage in crisis.
"Downhill" stars Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Pete and Billie Staunton, who along with their two sons Finn and Emerson (played by Julian Grey and Ammon Jacob Ford, respectively), take a family ski vacation in the Alps, where a near death experience of believing themselves to being killed by an on-coming avalanche, an experience which is compounded by the fact that Pete runs away, leaving his family behind, forces the couple to re-evaluate their lives and existence together.
Now at this time, I wish for you to contemplate some past films. Imagine, if you will, Harold Ramis' "National Lampoon's Vacation" (1983) if it were actually a drama. Or for that matter, let's take Ron Howard's "Parenthood" (1989) and cleave away all of the comedy. Writer/Director Judd Apatow has often professed that due to the extensive takes he shoots for his films, he could easily compile different versions of his work, some that lean more heavily into either comedy or drama. To that end, think of his film "This Is 40" (2012), which could easily be re-configured into an experience that took its inherent dramatic qualities into a much ore wrenching direction.
OK...now let's take all three of those films, and then completely drain them all of the warmth they all possess, the very warmth that endears those movies to us...and in doing so, you now have an approximation of what the experience of Nat Faxon and Jim Rash's "Downhill" actually is, a film that is as cold as the Alps yet filled with an unsettling emotional, existential urgency.
The film's first scene, where the Staunton family is attempting to pose for a family photo in the Alps, could easily be staged as a slapstick moment (and you may be tempted to try and laugh as if you are seeing a slapstick comedy) but in actuality, and rapidly so, we are witnessing an intense scene of a fractured family whose fault lines are cracking.
Yes, aside from this opening moment, the vacation seems to be fairly smooth sailing with crisp sequences of the family skiing happily and furthermore, with Pete and Billie's clear love for each other from sex in the shower to sharing the same bathroom. Yet, it is after Pete's flight from the family after the fear of being killed by an oncoming avalanche, where the troubling undercurrents are impossible to ignore and the reverberations are fraught with potentially irreparable damage, and even provoked by the presence of Charlotte (Miranda Otto), the sexually voracious resort manager and also Pete's younger co-worker Zach (Zach Woods) and his girlfriend Rosie (Zoe Chao).
For Pete Staunton, we are given the portrait of a husband and Father who does clearly love his family and wants to provide them with a memorable vacation but that said, he is also terrified of his family. Being constantly distracted by his smartphone and following the vacationing exploits of Zach and Rosie, even going so far as to secretly invite them to visit the family at the resort, showcases his own sense of married middle aged ennui. But he is also caught within a quiet sense of parental competition with Billie, as she is clearly in control of the events, and is also judgmental of Pete's choice of resort due to the lack of it being more family friendly for the sake of their sons. In essence, Pete feels past his prime and emasculated with only his money being able to be used as any sense of a "bargaining chip," as he is paying for the entirety of the vacation. And ultimately, we wonder, just as he does, if he ever even wanted children in the first place or did he have them with Billie because that is just what married couples do?
Additionally, Pete is consumed by grief over the death of his Father months earlier thus amplifying his own sense of mortality and existential crisis that is now contained within a "live in the moment" attitude which is also compounded by a fear of death. And it is this very internal quandary that infuses his snap decision to flee as his wife shields their children and awaits death from the on-coming avalanche, a decision which only emasculates him further in the eyes of Billie, his children and himself.
Billie Staunton is exceedingly more complicated than simply existing as the "long suffering wife," a role this character would most likely be relegated to in a mainstream comedy. As with Pete, Billie is also undergoing her own sense of married middle aged ennui, which feels to be released in her drive for control of the family, most especially their children, both of whom she micro-manages to point of denying her children a voice, unless she can weaponize their voices against Pete. After the avalanche incident, and Pete's subsequent refusal to own up to his own cowardice and failures, which in turn only increases Billie's rage, driving that wedge even deeper between herself and Pete, and fully explodes when Zach and Rosie make their "surprise" visit.
Egged on by Charlotte's sense of sexual freedom, a late film sequence during which Billie wishes for a "solo" day from her family and finds herself in the company of a younger man, the sexy, Italian ski instructor Guglielmo (Giulio Berruti). It is here where, she is not only tempted by infidelity, her sense of womanhood is at long last validated, rather than existing as someone's wife or Mother--to that end, Billie is also able to (kind of) validate her own sense of sexuality to herself. Yet, her intense need for control never lets up for even one moment and to a detrimental point of not being able to hear any other points than her own.
As Pete and Billie, both Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus excel. With Ferrell, he has already shows off his dramatic chops in two truly tender, layered performances in both Marc Forster's surreal comic fantasy "Stranger Than Fiction" (2006) and Dan Rush's excellent "Everything Must Go" (2010). In "Downhill," Ferrell succeeds again with a rich performance that sits in the muddled center of love, fear, pain, mourning, failure and fight and flight against the passage of time and life as it relates towards marriage, parenting and even his own survival, whether from a literal avalanche or the avalanche of life itself. As his character expresses to his friend Zach, "When you lose a parent, that ticking gets LOUD!!"
Julia Louis-Dreyfuss is a national treasure! Throughout her entire career in television and film, recently capped off by a superlative run on HBO's "Veep" (2012-2019), Louis-Dreyfus has demonstrated an uniquely skilled ability to mine the wells of comedy and drama and emerge with a level of pathos that is always so brilliantly earned and performed.
As Billie, we are given a portrait of a woman filled with a righteous and rightful fury that only builds as the film continues, and reaching a level where it does indeed threaten to lose any and all sympathy that she has gained from the audience. It is that sense of high-wire delivery is absolutely brilliant as she has found herself increasingly in the head-space of a person who possesses no nuance and solely a black/white vision of the life experience, which is threatened by Pete's behavior and challenged throughout the film up until the final moments, where her viewpoints are ambiguously upended.
Now, I do not wish to make you think that Nat Faxon's and Jim Rash's "Downhill" is akin to a film like Ingmar Bergman's "Scenes From A Marriage" (1972). But that being said, Faxon and Rash's film does carry a more European tonality that just might alienate American audiences who are indeed just looking for a lighthearted, laugh filled good time at the movies--especially the very one that is advertised in the film's own trailers. And "Downhill" is defiantly not that good time movie whatsoever, making for often uncomfortable viewing as it does force us to confront ourselves, our relationships, our families (especially parenting) and failings.
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And that is what made "Downhill" work for me so powerfully because it was so properly uncomfortable and frankly, art should not be here to make us always feel comfortable. No matter what the trailers have tried to present to us, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash's "Downhill" is an unapologetic, unrepentantly uncomfortable ride into the downward spiral of a marriage, a family, and middle aged existential crisis where every BOOM from the ski resort cannons sound like impending doom.
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