Downhill

The biggest flaw to 2014’s Force Majeure is properly addressed in the Hollywood remake, retitled Downhill. Will Ferrell is shown looking properly panicked as his character abandons his family while fleeing the threat of an avalanche on a skiing vacation. The original Swedish production gave the dad too much room to get away with the embarrassing display that still nearly wrecks his marriage. The rest of Downhill is pure schlock, though – because it’s the kind of movie that has to show a character making a funny panicked face. Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus are left trying to milk cringe-comedy out of the exciting topic of simmering resentment. There aren’t any legitimately dramatic moments because every character is too hateful to earn any sympathy. That leaves the directing team of Nat Faxon and Jim Rash relying on reaction shots while ruining the insightful original screenplay with a moronic ending meant to impress their showbiz pals. (To be fair, they won an Oscar for having The Descendants end in a similar fashion.) By the time that David Hasselhoff pops up for a cheap laugh, Downhill is worse than a sitcom version of a grown-up film. It’s a parody of a Hollywood film adaptation that you’d see on a self-impressed sitcom.

[R]