Downhill

This is a version of a review that aired on ABC Radio Ballarat and South West Victoria on March 6, 2020.

(M) ★★

Director: Nat Faxon & Jim Rash

Cast: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Will Ferrell, Miranda Otto, Julian Grey, Ammon Jacob Ford, Zoë Chao, Zach Woods, Giulio Berruti.

"Here's to wearing impractical amounts of clothing, being constantly cold and wet, and falling down a lot."

Every time Hollywood remakes a great non-English-language film, a puppy dies, a fairy loses its wings, and I have to resist the urge to go on a rant berating people who refuse to watch subtitled films for no good reason.

Yes, not all English-language remakes are bad. The Departed, Let Me In, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - these are great Americanised versions of great foreign films.

But mostly they're like this very disappointing and bland remake of Swedish film Force Majeure. Force Majeure is critically acclaimed for its blend of comedy and drama, but that is the exact area in which Downhill fails. I'm generalising here, but Europeans are much better at mixing the bleak with the bellylaughs. Americans... not so much. Downhill... definitely not so much.

Downhill is the story of a happily married couple (Dreyfuss and Ferrell) and their two kids (Grey and Ford), and focuses on the fallout from a very key moment of their skiing holiday in the Austrian Alps - a near-avalanche they all survive. But their reactions to the avalanche, and what comes after, threaten to tear them apart.

Downhill has one main problem - its tone. It's supposed to be a comedy-drama and it's not funny, while the majority of its drama is melodramatic. It occasionally digs deep, hits a nerve, and something powerful and raw comes out, but this is a rarity. The best example of the film's tonal failure is Otto's chalet owner Charlotte, who appears to have wandered in from another movie, most likely a broad brash comedy also starring Ferrell.

Despite the film's inadequacies, Dreyfus is great. Her character feels real, and handles the emotional highs and lows nicely. Ferrell isn't so successful though. He's lost in a netherworld between his usual goofiness and allowing his underused dramatic chops to shine. He shows admirable restraint yet always appears on the verge of unleashing one of his stock-in-trade improvised non sequiturs or hapless rages, and never quite seems at home with the character. His presence is predominantly distracting - he seems miscast for the most part.

Much of the fault has to lie with directors Faxon and Rash, who made the excellent The Way, Way Back. They don't land on their tone early, so the film is a real grind, despite being only 90 minutes long. There are breakthrough moments, mainly when Dreyfus and Ferrell have it out and the film touches on some painfully accurate themes about parenting, marriage, sacrifice and midlife crises.

But for the most part, Downhill never finds its groove, despite Dreyfus' best efforts. Ferrell can do straight roles, but it's almost as if the filmmakers weren't sure how to use him here, and as a result, the whole film suffers.

Go watch Force Majeure instead.