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Movie Review: Downhill

Mike Tyrkus

A big problem many might have with the new film starring Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus called Downhill is that it is, simply put, not that funny. In fact, the film is currently billed as a comedy/drama, or dramedy if you will. This classification does the film a severe disservice as there isn’t really anything in the context of Downhill that feels like its intended to or should be taken as being all that funny. Even though some extremely funny people are involved in the project, the subject matter—the disillusionment of marital/familial bliss is, by all accounts, no laughing matter.

Downhill is a remake of the film Force Majeure (2014) from Swedish director Ruben Östund. While that film’s dry take on marital relationships following a pseudo-avalanche could be interpreted as a dry satire on the institutions of marriage and family, this new Americanized version, directed by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (and written by that pair along with Jesse Armstrong), feels far more in line with something like Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) in its examination of the dissolving of the connection between a husband and wife and the affect that that dissolution has on their offspring than any sort of sardonic comedy. Downhill follows Pete (Ferrell) and his wife Billie (Louis-Dreyfus), who are on a ski vacation with their sons (Julian Grey and Ammon Jacob Ford) when a controlled avalanche occurs a little too close to the resort they are staying at. When Pete flees the avalanche, leaving his family, ostensibly to protect himself (and his phone) their relationship seems permanently fractured.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Will Ferrell in “Downhill.”

Throughout the course of the film, Billie and Pete try to come to terms with not only Pete’s actions, but what it ultimately means to their family as they move on from the incident. The introduction of additional characters like Zach (Zach Woods) and Rosie (Zoe Chao), who breeze into the increasing familial tension only to make matters worse when Pete feels the need to bring the kids into the argument to make clear that he was not abandoning his family. However, this is exactly what he has done, and Pete seems like he never quite grasps what has occurred and the irreparable damage he may have done to his family.

This wanton despair is at the heart of Downhill and it is that feeling of hopelessness that somehow allows that aspect of the film to succeed. If one goes into the film expecting a raucous ski comedy given the involvement of Ferrell and Louis-Dreyfus, then disappointment will be the only return on that investment. However, if preconceptions are checked before the titles begin, then a rewarding examination of the fragile state of relationships and how one’s perception of oneself may be completely wrong is waiting within the frames of Downhill.

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Mike Tyrkus

Editor in Chief at CinemaNerdz.com
An independent filmmaker, co-writer and director of over a dozen short films, the Editor in Chief of CinemaNerdz.com has spent much of the last three decades as a writer and editor specializing in biographical and critical reference sources in literature and the cinema, beginning in February 1991 reviewing films for his college newspaper. He was a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, as well as the group's webmaster and one-time President for over a decade until the group ceased to exist. His contributions to film criticism can be found in Magill's Cinema Annual, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (of which he was the editor for nearly a decade until it too ceased to exist), the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, and the St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (on which he collaborated with editor Andrew Sarris). He has also appeared on the television program Critic LEE Speaking alongside Lee Thomas of FOX2 and Adam Graham, of The Detroit News. He currently lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their dogs.

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