Downhill – Review

Downhill

Directed by: Nat Faxon and Jim Rash
Run-time: 86 minutes

“A sophisticated, relatable dark comedy that explores the complicated nature of relationships with heart, humour and bite.” This was printed on my ticket for the new movie, Downhill. I feel like if you have to tell me that something is sophisticated, it’s either not as sophisticated as you think, or I just don’t get it and it’s gone way over my ignorant, lowbrow head.

Downhill is an English remake of the 2014 Swedish film Force Majeure. The Stanton family are on a ski trip and while they’re having lunch, they are struck by an avalanche. In the shock of the moment Pete, the father, runs from his family to save himself. While Billie, the mother, holds tightly onto their two kids, trying to protect them from the snow. This moment forces Billie and Pete to re-evaluate their lives and how they feel about their relationship.

Right off the bat the two leads, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Will Ferrell, are very unlikable. Billie is incredibly high-strung and neurotic, while Pete is just a straight-up arsehole who has zero foresight to his actions. The film tries to get you to empathise with them, showing some scenes of Billie being a loving mother and Pete mourning the death of his father. This doesn’t make their actions any more understandable. This whole blow-up (which honestly just feels like a fight over practically nothing) could easily be solved with a simple apology. Surprisingly, the words “I’m sorry” never seem to come up in the script. I really didn’t care about either of these characters, so my interest in their relationship diminished as the film went on.

A lot of the humour in Downhill didn’t really land for me either. Julia Louis-Dreyfus was also a producer on this film and it shows. Many of the scenes, even the more dramatic moments, tend to go towards awkward social interactions and conversations; akin to the other big works she’s been a part of like Seinfeld and Veep. Combine that with Will Ferrell’s more crude and irreverent style of comedy, and it all just becomes an awkward, cringy mess. This movie was a solid ninety-minute squint-athon. It’s also just not that funny. The writing is pretty bad for most of the characters—again, it tries to capture the awkward absurdity of Seinfeld—but it just doesn’t work. Apparently, according to this film, all Austrians are aggressively horny… useful to know for my upcoming Europe trip.

There’s a scene early on the film where the Stanton’s go and make a complaint about the lack of response by the ski lodge during the avalanche. It’s explained to them that is was a controlled avalanche done to prevent more severe accidents. It’s also explained to them that there were warnings sprawled everywhere explaining that this was going to happen. Most importantly, everyone was fine. No one was hurt. That scene pretty much sums up what I think of this film. Nobody got hurt and nothing really happened. So what the fuck’s the point of this movie? It’s just the Stanton’s looking far too deeply at a nothing event while projecting their issues onto others and being arseholes to one another, their kids and everyone around them.

Honestly, you’ve probably never heard of Downhill to begin with. If you have and you’ve seen a trailer or two, you probably didn’t really care to go see it. And that’s the most appropriate response to have with this film. The main characters are horrible people who don’t ever feel like cheering on. It’s not even enjoyable to poke fun at them either, it’s just sad. In the end, Downhill doesn’t do anything interesting enough with the tools at its disposal, instead, it’s a film created from the fading remnants of two beloved comedic careers.