Downhill (2020)

While on a family vacation in the Austrian Alps, when an avalanche threatens to destroy the outdoor restaurant they're lunching at, the father (Will Ferrell) flees in a panic leaving his wife (Julia Louis Dreyfus) and two sons (Julian Grey, Ammon Jacob Ford) at the mercy of the avalanche. This act of seeming cowardice will mark a turning point in their marriage. Based on the 2014 Scandinavian film (the credits say "inspired") FORCE MAJEURE and directed by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (THE WAY WAY BACK). With the very rare exception (like THE BIRDCAGE), most English language remakes of foreign language films fail to capture what made the original film good in the first place. Attempts to improve upon it or Americanize it almost inevitably destroy the qualities which attracted us to the original material. DOWNHILL jacks up the humor in this reinvention (FORCE MAJEURE's humor was much more subtle) which actually detracts from the film. One can't help but wonder who the film was designed for. Audiences expecting a typical Will Ferrell comedy are going to be disappointed and bored and the audience who might actually see a film like this are going to avoid a Will Ferrell movie like the plague! Which is a pity because the film is just good enough to make you wish it were better instead of a movie miscalculation. If FORCE MAJEURE never existed, I might have been impressed but it does exist. With Miranda Otto, Zach Woods and Zoe Chao.