{"id":6050,"date":"2024-10-14T15:55:06","date_gmt":"2024-10-14T19:55:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6050"},"modified":"2024-10-14T23:54:08","modified_gmt":"2024-10-15T03:54:08","slug":"downhill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/14\/downhill\/","title":{"rendered":"Downhill"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Downhill<\/strong> (2020)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Searchlight\/Comedy-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 86 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, some sexual material)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Nat Faxon and Jim Rash\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jesse Armstrong, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Volker Bertelmann\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Danny Cohen\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 14, 2020 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Will Ferrell, Miranda Otto, Zach Woods, Zoe Chao, Giulo Berruti, Kristofer Hivju, Julian Grey, Ammon Jacob Ford.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $8.2M (US)\/$8.8M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: * \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0In preparation for Downhill<\/strong>, 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 \u201ccolossally annoying and pretentious\u201d. I also said, \u201cEverybody in it is an a**hole. Even the kids are little a**holes. These people got on my damn nerves.\u201d I wasn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The good news is that Downhill<\/strong> is slightly less grating than the 2014 original. The bad news is that it\u2019s only slightly less grating. I still hated the two main characters, but I didn\u2019t feel a strong urge to beat them senseless this time. As for the kids, I wouldn\u2019t call them little a**holes this time. In fact, I don\u2019t know how to describe them since they don\u2019t play as big a role in the Americanized version. Ungrateful and self-centered maybe? It\u2019s hard to say. ANYWAY, the main problem with Downhill<\/strong>, and I can\u2019t believe I\u2019m saying this, is that it lacks the bite of the original. Like it or not, Force Majeure has a sharp edge. Downhill<\/strong> is as dull as your grandmother\u2019s old tarnished butcher knife. You know, the one you can\u2019t bring yourself to throw out even though it\u2019s been sitting unused in the cutlery drawer for the past 30 years.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Once 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 \u201cbe there\u201d and not always on his cell phone. Pete, whose profession is never revealed, can\u2019t help it. He keeps texting back and forth with a younger colleague who\u2019s trekking through nearby countries with his wife. That he\u2019d rather do that than spend time with his two preteen sons says a lot about his character.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Pete\u2019s 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\u2019s only a matter of time before things come to a head.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Billie 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As a whole, Downhill<\/strong> is pretty awful. Whereas Force Majeure had something to say, its American counterpoint doesn\u2019t seem to have anything on its mind. To me, it was just another movie about a couple\u2019s messed up marriage. I\u2019ll stick with Marriage Story, thank you very much. At least Noah Baumbach gave his characters some likable qualities. With Downhill<\/strong>, 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\u2019s plan to treat the family to a day of heli-skiing is ruined by his family\u2019s behavior. One of the boys loses a glove and Billie insists they can\u2019t go without it. Pete yells at them to get on the helicopter. Billie refuses. It leaves without them. I\u2019m not so sure the lost glove wasn\u2019t a passive-aggressive stunt on Billie\u2019s part.<\/p>\n

\u00a0For me, Downhill<\/strong> 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\u2019t want to be bothered with their parents\u2019 drama. I didn\u2019t 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\u2019s handsome ski instructor (Berruti), is your typical horny European. I get his role in the story but not Charlotte\u2019s. If her purpose is comic relief, she fails.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The trailer that I saw for Downhill<\/strong> implies it\u2019s a comedy. It\u2019s 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\u2019t see anything to laugh at. Even the ironic final scene didn\u2019t elicit so much as a half-smile from this bored, frustrated viewer. Other than some gorgeous cinematography, there isn\u2019t anything to see in the aptly titled Downhill<\/strong>, the direction the movie takes from scene one.<\/p>\n

P.S. I\u2019m still waiting to hear back from Matty Simmons about the idea for National Lampoon\u2019s Ski Vacation I proposed in my review of Force Majeure. Hey, it could work.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Downhill (2020)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Searchlight\/Comedy-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 86 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, some sexual material)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Nat Faxon and Jim Rash\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jesse Armstrong, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Volker Bertelmann\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Danny Cohen\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 14, 2020 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Will Ferrell, Miranda Otto, Zach Woods, Zoe Chao, Giulo Berruti, Kristofer Hivju, Julian Grey, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6173,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,15,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies","category-sequels-remakes","category-this-sucks-so-bad"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Downhill-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6050"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6175,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6050\/revisions\/6175"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}