‘Downhill’ heads in the wrong direction from the beginning
Even in these days of sequels and prequels and reboots and — the big daddy of them all — remakes, there are still many reasons to greenlight a remake. One is to do a better version of a film that wasn’t very good. Another is to try for a different take of a good film. A better reason, one that’s less likely to fail in the American moviegoing market, is to craft an English-language adaptation of a successful foreign-language film so American audiences can appreciate a movie that they don’t have to read.
Unfortunately, there’s often a caveat to go along with that last category: The film also has to be dumbed down for American audiences. When that happens, more often than not, it’s not worth seeing.
Think of “Swept Away” or “The Vanishing.” A good Italian film and a great Dutch film. Not so with their non-subtitled remakes. I could make a long list of others, but why bother when the practice still continues?
The latest in the line is “Downhill,” an Americanized remake of the engrossing, uncomfortable, darkly humorous 2014 Swedish film “Force Majeure.” It wasn’t exactly a hit, but it garnered very positive reviews and a gaggle of international awards, and it made a decent box office showing at American art houses.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus (one of the film’s producers) is
good in the role of Billie, a protective mom whose long-ago free-spirited attitude has been squashed by marriage and motherhood. Will Ferrell fares less well, miscast as Pete, who has probably always been a well-meaning dullard, but allows his inner jerk to surface when he feels threatened.
This could have turned into a good character study, but writer-directors Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, perhaps under studio orders, have turned it into what could possibly be considered an uncomfortable comedy. One that’s at best awkward and at worst not very funny.