Downhill – first look review | Little White Lies

Festivals

Down­hill – first look review

27 Jan 2020

Words by Hannah Strong

Two adults, a man and a woman, sitting at a table by a window overlooking a snowy landscape.
Two adults, a man and a woman, sitting at a table by a window overlooking a snowy landscape.
Will Fer­rell and Julia Louis-Drey­fus hit the slopes in this mis­er­able remake of Ruben Östlund’s Force Majeure.

The lat­est high-pro­file (and osten­si­bly point­less) US remake of a for­eign-lan­guage film, Jim Rash and Nat Faxon’s Down­hill is based on Ruben Östlund’s acclaimed 2014 com­e­dy-dra­ma Force Majeure, about a fam­i­ly whose rela­tion­ships with one anoth­er are test­ed dur­ing a ski­ing hol­i­day in the Alps.

Will Fer­rell takes on the cen­tral part of Pete Staunton, whose trip with wife Bil­lie (Julia Louis-Drey­fus) and their two sons Finn and Emer­son descends into chaos after he fails to pro­tect them dur­ing a sus­pect­ed avalanche.

Get more Lit­tle White Lies

Yet where Östlund delved into the psy­chol­o­gy of why a man might act in such a cow­ard­ly way, Rash and Fax­on are more con­cerned with tired car­i­ca­tures of Euro­peans and jokes that nev­er real­ly land.

Even at a svelte 85 min­utes, Down­hill still man­ages to drag. It feels like the Spar­kNotes ver­sion of Force Majeure, the source mate­r­i­al sim­pli­fied to the point of being bare­ly recog­nis­able. The script is mis­er­ably unfun­ny too, which is sur­pris­ing giv­en that it was co-writ­ten (along­side Rash and Fax­on) by Jesse Arm­strong of Peep Show, Veep and Suc­ces­sion fame.

And while it’s admirable that Fer­rell and Louis-Drey­fus per­formed all their own ski­ing stunts, these two gen­uine com­ic greats are wast­ed here.

You might like

Two people in casual clothes, one wearing a red top, chatting outdoors; people sitting at tables indoors, some playing musical instruments.
Festivals

Temporal Sensibilities: Queering timelines and nostalgia

by Yuki Yoshikawa, Pear Nual­lak

In col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Queer East Film Fes­ti­val, our sec­ond pair from the Emerg­ing Crit­ics cohort offer their thoughts on this year’s programme.
A collage of scenes from a film, including a man in traditional Japanese dress, a woman in a revealing dress, and various other characters in action.
Festivals

This Must Be the Place: A Queer East Correspondence

by Qinghan Chen, Lydia Leung

In col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Queer East Film Fes­ti­val, this year’s Emerg­ing Crit­ics cohort offer their respons­es to the film programme.
Silhouette of a person seated on a bench in a misty, blue-toned environment.
Festivals

Resurrection – first-look review

by Hannah Strong

Bi Gan’s third fea­ture is an epic in every sense of the word, tak­ing view­ers on a sprawl­ing odyssey through cinema.
Man in a flat cap, wearing a brown coat, standing in a snowy street next to a parked car.
Festivals

The Mastermind – first-look review

by Hannah Strong

An art theft spells dis­as­ter for Josh O’Con­nor in Kel­ly Reichardt’s excel­lent Viet­nam-era heist dramedy.
A young woman wearing a red jacket and shorts stands in the middle of a crowd of people lying on the ground.
Festivals

The Wave – first-look review

by Rafa Sales Ross

Sebastián Lelio’s musi­cal take on Chile’s MeToo move­ment is a mis­judged gum-smack­ing mess.
A woman in a long, red floral dress stands in front of a building with a "Gym's" sign. A car is visible in the background.
Festivals

Honey Don’t! – first-look review

by David Jenkins

The sec­ond instal­ment of Ethan Coen and Tri­cia Cooke’s les­bian genre film tril­o­gy man­ages to just about snag a pass­ing grade.