Back in the ancient time known as 2014, Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund created a film known as Force Majeure, an internationally co-produced comedy following the marital tension of a couple snowed in during an avalanche on their ski trip. Fast-forward to 3 or 4 years later, where Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, known for their work on The Way Way Back and Community, decided to adapt this to an American audience. The result is Downhill, which is a nice take on the original as it exemplifies what it means for an adaptation to be “similar but different”.
Right from the first scene, Downhill immediately draws viewers into into the beautiful landscape of the Swiss Alps, where it takes place, with its landscape and aerial shots. While I can’t ski at all, the film almost makes me want to learn how just so I can see this beautiful place, where they actually filmed many scenes. Real kudos to the location scouts on this one.
After some narration and landscape shots, we’re introduced to the main characters, the husband-and-wife duo of Billie (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and Pete (Will Ferrell), who are on a ski trip with their young sons. It seems like a typical winter family film from this exposition, that is, until the avalanche begins. In a jiffy, Pete chooses himself over the rest of his family, and darts away from the resort as Billie stays back. The avalanche incident is then denied by Pete throughout the whole film, even failing to support his wife when she reports the avalanche to tough-as-nails resort manager Mats (played by Game of Thrones actor Kristofer Hivju), the one real villain that we have in the film, who seems to agree with Pete’s view. Pete shows even more of his cowardly and selfish side when he calls his friend Zack (Zach Woods) and his wife Rosie (Zoe Chao) up without telling Billie, and stays with them throughout the second half. Zack immediately catches on to what Pete is doing, however, and acts as a mediator between the marital tension.
The acting in this film is where the talent truly shines. Both Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus shine as the leads, and some cool supporting performances from Giulio Berrutti, Zoe Chao, and the aforementioned Hivju round it out. An unexpected star in this already solid cast is Zach Woods, known for his roles in two sitcoms, The Office and Silicon Valley, prior to this. His character is not only the source of some of the best dialogue in the film thanks to his interactions with the rest of the cast, but has some genuine depth once the film goes on and we find out more about his own personal problems. It’s great to see someone like him, someone I grew up watching throughout my adolescent and teenage years, actually, be able to give such a good performance among comedic powerhouses.
Before I watched this, I made sure to rent out a copy of Force Majeure to see if I could find any parallels or choose a favorite. To be honest, I don’t really know if I have a favorite over the two because each film is great in its own unique way. I think Downhill‘s cinematography is a big improvement compared to the original, but the original’s humor and writing carries it. Surprisingly, Downhill’s script is not a Google Translate copy like so many of these American remakes are, but it still manages to be the weakest point. In short, the cast makes the most with a mediocre script and it turns into what tries to be a good time. The humorous dialogue is great, but the serious dialogue isn’t, and the writers ended up taking a stance more than the original film’s team did, giving more depth to the wife and making her seem like the “real hero” until the end. I prefer the original film’s impartial nature because it shows that there’s two sides to every story, something Downhill tried but ultimately failed to do.
Rash and Faxon hit the sweet spot between “too similar” and “too dissimilar” perfectly in terms of the overall adaptation. While Downhill is good, it’s not a perfect movie in any way, but it’s a very rare sight to see an adaptation that deviates from the original while still sticking to the original’s values, which is both something rare and something to be admired.
3.5/5 STARS