Force Majeure

Writer/​director Ruben Östlund’s ski-resort com­e­dy of social/​psychological unease tries to oper­ate at high alti­tude in more ways than one, aim­ing some­where between ear­ly Mike Leigh and mid­dle Michael Haneke. In ski par­lance, Dou­ble Black Dia­mond ter­rain: experts only. But this tale of a hol­i­day­ing Swedish family’s esca­lat­ing ordeal rife with mishap and dys­func­tion only inter­mit­tent­ly soars – Blue Square stuff at best.

It’s a shame, because Östlund promised so much with his sec­ond fea­ture, 2008’s chill­ing­ly pre­cise, qui­et­ly hilar­i­ous Invol­un­tary. And while his 2011 fol­low-up Play fell dis­ap­point­ing­ly flat, Force Majeure was one of the crit­i­cal hits of the 2014 Cannes Film Festival.

The film shoots for the soft tar­get of bour­geois com­pla­cen­cy with focus on genial thir­tysome­thing Tomas (Johannes Bah Kuhnke). Escap­ing work with wife Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli) and two kvetch­ing bairns in the French Alps, Tomas’ inad­e­qua­cies are revealed when a ​“con­trolled” avalanche threat­ens cat­a­stro­phe. Aban­don­ing his kin — but seiz­ing his smart phone mid-scarp­er – Tomas com­pounds his sins by deny­ing cow­ardice when Ebba idly men­tions the inci­dent among pals.

The plot thus piv­ots around a sin­gle moment of pan­ic with Tomas spend­ing the remain­der of the film’s two hours des­per­ate­ly try­ing to acknowledge/​overcome his mil­que­toastish­ness, main­ly through talky, inte­ri­or scenes that exude incon­gru­ous the­atri­cal­i­ty along­side spec­tac­u­lar out­doorsy inter­ludes. Östlund’s expe­ri­ence of the milieu — he cut his teeth on ski­ing doc­u­men­taries – is evi­dent from the assured poise with which the arti­fi­cial pseu­do-par­adise of Les Arcs is con­jured, a zone of unset­tling­ly Cro­nen­ber­gian accom­mo­da­tions and well-heeled dis­con­tents (“Here I am in this fan­cy hotel, and I’m not happy…”)

It’s a repel­lent­ly gild­ed bub­ble, ide­al for such a pun­ish­ment-of-lux­u­ry exer­cise, with the work­ing class­es tact­ful­ly invis­i­ble, bar one surly-sin­is­ter main­te­nance bloke, gaz­ing implaca­bly as he puffs a ver­boten indoors cig­a­rette. He instinc­tive­ly grasps that some­thing is amiss; us too, via the inter­play of Fredrik Wenzel’s crys­talline cin­e­matog­ra­phy and Ola Fløttum’s jar­ring­ly inter­mit­tent orches­tral score.

Force Majeure also indicts the ubiq­ui­ty of tech­nol­o­gy, most obvi­ous­ly the smart phones by which so many in Europe (and beyond) have so quick­ly become obliv­i­ous­ly enthralled. Ski-lift mech­a­nisms appear as poten­tial death-traps. Motorised trans­port is alarm­ing­ly haz­ardous. The cli­max, in which a howl­ing­ly inept, automa­ton­like coach-dri­ver (anoth­er dis­con­cert­ing pro­le­tar­i­an) strug­gles with moun­tain hair­pins is heart-in-the-mouth hilarious.

Such Invol­un­tary lev­el excel­lence, how­ev­er, shows up the rest of the film as an essen­tial­ly hol­low con­trivance, more con­cerned with push­ing hot but­tons and spark­ing dis­cus­sion than organ­i­cal­ly devel­op­ing char­ac­ters or prob­ing com­plex issues. It’s beau­ti­ful­ly han­dled, but even daz­zling­ly styl­ish tech­ni­cal élan only gets one so far. Invol­un­tary showed what Östlund’s capa­ble of. Force Majeure is like watch­ing Kil­ly or Vonn mur­der­ing nurs­ery slopes: bril­liant, breath­tak­ing, facile, pointless.