Am I the only one that liked Downhill? Movies have a marketing problem. Do not sell people one thing then give them another because then your movie is going to be panned. Attract the audiences that will love your movie. Downhill is a remake of a foreign movie called Force Majeure about a Swedish/Norwegian family consisting of a married couple and their two young children staying at a French ski resort who suddenly become divided after an unexpected shock. I saw the original years ago and found it visually stunning if a little longer than necessary. When I heard that it was being remade as an American comedy, I immediately got concerned. Was the original a comedy, and I missed the humor because something got lost in translation or would the American film entirely miss what made the original great in translating the story to American audiences?
I actually appreciated the majority of Downhill’s story changes although it definitely made some elements broadly comical to get some cheap laughs. Will Ferrell plays the husband/father, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, whom I have loved since Day by Day and was always annoyed that Seinfeld was not actually the Elaine show then finally got her due in Veep, plays the wife/mother. I am not knocking Ferrell, but his fans were not expecting what they got. The advantage of casting well known comedic actors as these characters is their familiarity and fame. This film uses their familiarity not to rehash their old schtick in a new package, but as an entry point to understanding these new characters’ inner lives and thought processes so we understand them without seeing them for longer than a few minutes. A movie does not have a lot of time to get us up to speed. A film can use montages, clunky prose or show us, but good acting, which Louis-Dreyfus definitely delivers, can get us there in seconds. Downhill needed to get the Adam Sandler dramatic hype machine out because it is really a drama featuring comedy actors in dramatic roles. The PR campaign should have been distinguishing it from the past, not resting on their laurels.
After watching Downhill, I would have loved to rewatch Force Majeure because I bet that I missed a lot of the subtext the first time around, which seems obvious in this remake. As an American watching Force Majeure, I was not able to make instinctual distinctions of the many different types of European characters in the film and what they represented, and I was only familiar with one of the actors, Game of Thrones’ Kristofer Hivju, who also appears in Downhill in a new hilarious role not included in the original. I would love to know how Europeans from different countries received the original since some would immediately recognize the actors or the stereotypes being depicted. In Force Majeure, all the characters are unlikeable, it just takes awhile to recognize it. In Downhill, the characters discover that one character is actually really selfish and has been dominating the entire family for awhile so it evokes the full spectrum of emotions in the other members—some for the better, others for the worse, but this awakening creates a call to change without fully resolving the characters’ foibles, which I found refreshing because usually we get pat, happy, unrealistic endings, which this film resists. This film also manages not to equate bad behavior with being bad people, just human weakness.
Downhill is Louis-Dreyfus’ movie. She is the forty-seven percent realizing that she is being treated as if she is in the fifty-three percent, and watching her calculate, recognize and struggle to put to words her feelings about the situation and to call out bullshit was a joy to behold, especially since her character is a lawyer. Once she finds her voice, she becomes irrepressible and reasonably uncompromising. I liked the fact that there was no resentment about being an individual, a wife and a mother. She is still the same person who made a choice about how she wanted her life constructed, but is horrified that her partner acts as if he has not made the same choice and keeps looking elsewhere. She signed up to be a team. @khayadlanga tweeted, “Someone said to me the other day even married women are single mothers. That hit deep.” She recognizes in various ways that if she wants to return to being single, she can, but she wants her life to look a certain way and while she is not willing to sacrifice herself or her values to make that team work, she is still willing to work. It is a nuance missing in most American films that go for big dramatic, huge life changing ultimatums. Her character was far more relatable than her original passive aggressive, equally as selfish original counterpart.
Ferrell does not quite rise to the same challenge as Louis-Dreyfus. Downhill shows Ferrell’s limits and why every comedian cannot pull an Adam Sandler at will. In spite of his limitations, the movie still managed to exploit comedians close proximity to tragedy. A lot of people forget that comedy mines its talents from an extremely dark place, which is why films about comedians usually end up so depressing. Ferrell does manage to convey a common American male crisis—the lack of close same sex friendships in which deep conversation can safely thrive. The reason that American men need feminism is so they can be free to explore his whole range of humanity without negative emotions exhibiting itself in antisocial ways that harm others and relationships. Romantic relationships should not be the only outlet that men can outsource their emotional labor. Americans are incapable of confronting their mortality, their limitation and their fears, which are all natural, without on some level believing that these normal feelings are actually individual flaws which must be obfuscated. His cardinal sin is denying reality and gaslighting. In contrast to the original character, it is not about work and being unable to get out of his routine.
Downhill was wise to make the children older and boys. The kid actors delivered great performances without saying much at all. The cheap laughs come from relying on European stereotypes, which were enjoyable, but even though the role was hacky, Miranda Otto still was tons of fun in it. I would totally have dinner with her while clutching my pearls. No judgment! The two funniest scenes are when three members of the family watch one member ski then when the husband’s friend is ushering the now drunk father, “We should get you out of here. It’s almost 7.”
Visually the film is gorgeous, and Downhill’s directors initially copy Force Majeure’s framing, but then abandons the effort. Force Majeure visually reflects the psychological state of the individual characters in each frame whereas Downhill’s directors eventually give up and just restrict visual tension to bathroom scenes. Still seeing winter landscapes on a big screen makes me happy.
Downhill is not as visually strong as Force Majeure, but for an American remake, its reimagining of the characters and the situation translates well and actually makes the characters more likeable without sacrificing their foibles. I appreciated its willingness to stay uncomfortable and off balance.