Downhill (2020) Searchlight/Comedy-Drama RT: 86 minutes Rated R (language, some sexual material) Director: Nat Faxon and Jim Rash Screenplay: Jesse Armstrong, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash Music: Volker Bertelmann Cinematography: Danny Cohen Release date: February 14, 2020 (US) Cast: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Will Ferrell, Miranda Otto, Zach Woods, Zoe Chao, Giulo Berruti, Kristofer Hivju, Julian Grey, Ammon Jacob Ford. Box Office: $8.2M (US)/$8.8M (World)
Rating: * ½
In preparation for Downhill, I looked up my review for Force Majeure, the Swedish-made black comedy that serves as the basis for this weak American remake starring Will Ferrell (Anchorman) and Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Seinfeld). I passionately HATED Force Majeure. To quote my words, I found it “colossally annoying and pretentious”. I also said, “Everybody in it is an a**hole. Even the kids are little a**holes. These people got on my damn nerves.” I wasn’t exactly looking forward to a remake much less one starring two actors I usually find annoying. That there was next to no marketing for it made me even more leery. At the same time, I was a little curious about what Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (The Way, Way Back) would do with the material.
The good news is that Downhill is slightly less grating than the 2014 original. The bad news is that it’s only slightly less grating. I still hated the two main characters, but I didn’t feel a strong urge to beat them senseless this time. As for the kids, I wouldn’t call them little a**holes this time. In fact, I don’t know how to describe them since they don’t play as big a role in the Americanized version. Ungrateful and self-centered maybe? It’s hard to say. ANYWAY, the main problem with Downhill, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, is that it lacks the bite of the original. Like it or not, Force Majeure has a sharp edge. Downhill is as dull as your grandmother’s old tarnished butcher knife. You know, the one you can’t bring yourself to throw out even though it’s been sitting unused in the cutlery drawer for the past 30 years.
Once again the story centers on a couple whose marriage is already on the rocks when they arrive in the Alps for a family ski vacation. The tension between them is palpable. Billie (Dreyfus), an attorney, just wants her husband Pete (Ferrell) to “be there” and not always on his cell phone. Pete, whose profession is never revealed, can’t help it. He keeps texting back and forth with a younger colleague who’s trekking through nearby countries with his wife. That he’d rather do that than spend time with his two preteen sons says a lot about his character.
Pete’s priorities are made even clearer when disaster strikes in the form of a controlled avalanche. Instead of protecting his family, he grabs his phone and runs leaving Billie and the boys to fend for themselves on the elevated patio where they were about to order lunch. When the danger has passed, Pete returns and acts like nothing happened. Billie and the boys are too shaken to react to his nonchalance. This pretty much ruins the whole vacation. Pete overcompensates; Billie barely contains her anger. You know it’s only a matter of time before things come to a head.
Billie finally loses it when Pete tries to downplay the incident in front of company, his work friend Zach (Woods, Silicon Valley) and wife Rosie (Chao, Strangers), guests he invited for drinks without checking with Billie first. It gets ugly fast with Billie dragging the boys into it while their guests look on uncomfortably. At the end, Pete still refuses to accept accountability for his actions.
As a whole, Downhill is pretty awful. Whereas Force Majeure had something to say, its American counterpoint doesn’t seem to have anything on its mind. To me, it was just another movie about a couple’s messed up marriage. I’ll stick with Marriage Story, thank you very much. At least Noah Baumbach gave his characters some likable qualities. With Downhill, we get two people that no rational person would even want to exchange pleasantries with in an elevator much less watch bicker and yell for nearly 90 minutes. The scene that gets on my nerves the most is when Pete’s plan to treat the family to a day of heli-skiing is ruined by his family’s behavior. One of the boys loses a glove and Billie insists they can’t go without it. Pete yells at them to get on the helicopter. Billie refuses. It leaves without them. I’m not so sure the lost glove wasn’t a passive-aggressive stunt on Billie’s part.
For me, Downhill comes down to this. Pete is a selfish man-child who needs to grow the hell up and Billie is a mean, controlling bitch. Their sons clearly don’t want to be bothered with their parents’ drama. I didn’t care about a single one of them. Equally annoying is Charlotte (Otto, the LOTR movies), the uncomfortably open hotel employee who tries to befriend an unfriendly Pete and Billie. She, along with Billie’s handsome ski instructor (Berruti), is your typical horny European. I get his role in the story but not Charlotte’s. If her purpose is comic relief, she fails.
The trailer that I saw for Downhill implies it’s a comedy. It’s easy to believe since its two stars are mainly known as comic actors. This is what we call misleading marketing. It is NOT a comedy, at least not in the sense most people might think. It tries to be darkly funny but I didn’t see anything to laugh at. Even the ironic final scene didn’t elicit so much as a half-smile from this bored, frustrated viewer. Other than some gorgeous cinematography, there isn’t anything to see in the aptly titled Downhill, the direction the movie takes from scene one.
P.S. I’m still waiting to hear back from Matty Simmons about the idea for National Lampoon’s Ski Vacation I proposed in my review of Force Majeure. Hey, it could work.
