Downhill (M)
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3 stars
I was aware of American actor Jim Rash from his years playing the community college dean on the excellent sitcom Community. Camp and polished, his comedy timing is impeccable.
I wasn't aware of his screenwriting work and so it was a pleasant surprise to see him on the Oscar stage accepting his Academy Award for Best Screenplay for the George Clooney film The Descendants in 2012.
Rash and his Descendants writing buddy Nat Faxon do double duty on this film as both screenwriters and co-directors, taking a very well regarded Swedish film as source material - Ruben Ostlund's Force Majeure from 2014.
This is where the wheels started to come off the bus for them.
Their take on Ostlund's idea is not meeting a very kind critical response. Not because their film isn't an acceptable piece of business, but because critics really loved the original.
In this version, Downhill, Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus play long-married couple Pete and Billie Staunton, arriving for some family time on the slopes with their children (Julian Grey and Ammon Jacob Ford).
Between the Stauntons you find the same cracks you see in most marriages.When their ski resort experiences a near miss from a natural disaster, the cracks start to pull apart thanks to an act of selfishness from Pete.
In the Swedish original, this was a dark exploration of a number of themes. In the American remake, the concept is explored almost sitcom-style, starting with the casting of its two leads.
Walking into this film, and knowing the original work, I assumed Louis-Dreyfus and Ferrell were looking for their Robin Williams Dead Poets Society moment. I imagined sombre performances that screamed expensive Academy Award voting campaigns, and both making their transition from comedic goofballs to Meryl Streep-level seriousness.
Nope, they're both pretty much the characters we expect them to be. Louis-Dreyfus puts a different spin on wry, cynical Elaine from Seinfeld or Selina Meyer from Veep. Ferrell does another take on a self-involved loud-mouthed American as in practically everything he has done.They're great actors both and these new characters suit them.
It is great to see Miranda Otto on screen, hamming it up unbelievably.
Rash and Faxon are almost making a completely different film, and are enjoying the "what if" premise the original film set up. Their film is much lighter, occasionally funny, sometimes forced. It isn't a bad way to kill 90 minutes at the movies.
But if you saw the original you are going to hate this film as one of the most inane wastes of your time. You may spend weeks afterwards boring your friends as to why Hollywood feels the need to remake good things so the dialogue can be spoken in their own accents.