Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Will Ferrell play it straight in 'Downhill'
No Content for Old Men
with Matt Craig
In this week's newsletter: A review of the Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Will Ferrell two-hander Downhill, plus a couple of excellent television recommendations. Then a renewed motivation to knock out some international film classics. And lastly in this week's "Trailer Watch," a lament on the movie selections of the underrated Sarah Paulson.
Word Count: 740 words
Approximate Reading Time: 4 minutes
Downhill
You gotta let the chefs cook
If I told you that a Swedish film about the dissolution of a marriage -- the type of movie no one watches but still pretends to praise in conversation using some adjective they heard on a podcast ... "ah yes it was incisive, so acidic" -- was being remade for American audiences, no one would be shocked. If I then revealed the movie was going to debut at the Sundance Film Festival, no eyebrows would be raised.
This is the kind of thing that happens on the fringes of Hollywood every single year. Most times, the movie gets a metaphorical golf clap from journalists high on thin mountain air and the summer camp vibe in Park City, then fades unceremoniously into obscurity.
Except in the case of Downhill, a remake of 2014's Force Majeure, the vehicle roles are inhabited by Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Will Ferrell. Not only are they two of the most recognizable faces in the world, they are famous for a very specific thing: being hilarious. You see one of them in a movie and you're expecting to laugh. You see them both together and you're expecting to bust a gut (as the boomers would say).
This movie is not exactly a barrel full of laughs. Briefly, the premise. A family goes on a European ski vacation to repair a marriage coming apart at the seams, but during an avalanche scare the father (Ferrell) panics, ditches his family and runs away from danger, then fails to acknowledge his error. The rest of the movie deals with the fallout, in melodramatic and sometimes excruciating detail.
My inclination is to support any artists looking to take chances and expand their body of work. And make no mistake, both JLD and Ferrell make extremely competent dramatic actors. But it's really hard not to want, as the old adage goes, "Clint Eastwood to be Clint F-----g Eastwood." (I guess that Hollywood-ism has forever been replaced with the click of a pistol and a whisper of "Rick F-----g Dalton" from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.) No one wants to see Michael Jordan play baseball, right? Or see Eastwood play a doe-eyed romantic. They want frontier justice, snarls, threats of violence.
Perhaps the play against type could've worked, if JLD and Ferrell had allowed themselves to come across as vicious and unlikable. The surprise factor would send a shockwave of electricity through the material. But that would both break the Movie Star Oath ("though shalt pursue likability at all costs") and the suspension of disbelief. The way they play it is the way one imagines it would unfold in real life. It's passive aggressive, brooding, and ultimately good-hearted. The characters are filled with enough warmth to remain relatable, yet as a result are less compelling.
Genre movies rely on a really strong emotional response to coax people into the theater. The absence of it -- "oh that movie wasn't very scary/funny/romantic" -- is a death sentence. Which based on Downhill's opening weekend box office numbers, appears to ring true.
The more I thought about it, there's an even more fundamental reason why the movie was a tough hang. Are we sure we really want to see divorce movies? There's a reason why no one rushed to follow up Kramer vs. Kramer, despite its success both critically and commercially. Even this year's Marriage Story came up short at the Oscars, and though we can't know its popularity since it went straight to Netflix, it's fair to say it didn't make too many ripples in the broader culture.
Downhill resembles Marriage Story in almost every respect, or at least tries to without the benefit of Noah Baumbach's signature whit and insightfulness in the script. Partners struggle to balance who they are as individuals with who they are as a couple, using their kids as a political football. It's a situation that is real and raw and emotional, yes, but it's also uncomfortable and heartbreaking and often even annoying. That's not exactly a recipe for a fun night at the movies.
Of course not all movies need to be popcorn entertainment. Marriage Story may not be pleasant but at times it is profound. So too was Force Majeure (or at least that's what the podcasts tell me).
But why else would you remake the movie just a few years later with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Will Ferrell?
That is a question I cannot answer.
Streaming Suggestions!
Something New
High Fidelity (Hulu): A remake of the 2000 young adult dramedy starring John Cusak, this time with Zoë Kravitz at the lead as the lonely owner of a vintage vinyl store. The show captures millennial culture at perhaps its most aspirational, zipping through the streets of New York City with an energy that is infectious. The fourth wall-breaking intervals make for a nice storytelling device that serves as the spine of a well-crafted story about modern dating...kinda.
Briarpatch (USA): This is just a friendly reminder, in case you missed my ringing endorsement a few weeks ago, to do yourselves a favor and keep up with this neo-noir miniseries. It's quirky and at times even outlandish but minute to minute nothing else captures my attention as fully as this show. Three episodes are online now. Catch up!
Something Old
Rashomon (1950): I'd just like to report back on last week's recommendation to see perhaps the greatest Japanese film of all time. It's wild to watch something like this and realize how foundational of a text it truly has been in modern cinema. Decades of flashbacks, unreliable narrators and interweaving narratives all pay a debt to Akira Kurosawa. Plus, in a week where Donald Trump literally said on stage that Parasite shouldn't have won Best Picture because it's a South Korean film, this feels important.
8 1/2 (1963): Keeping with my recent trend of a recommendation I'm making for myself, this movie is on my to-do list for the next week. I was intrigued enough by La Dolce Vita to check out another of Frederico Fellini's movies, this one about a movie director during an embattled production. Everyone says it's a masterpiece. Can't wait.
Something to Stream
Marriage Story (Netflix): One thing going to see Downhill this week did for me was allow me to truly appreciate a far superior movie on the same topic. If you skipped this one during awards season, now is the time to click over to it and appreciate an acting and screenwriting masterclass. Do it instead of going to see Downhill. Please.
Trailer Watch: Run
Has there ever been a better actress who took as many bad roles as Sarah Paulson? When I saw her in Glass last year, I wept. Here's to hoping that this thriller, which may be about a mentally unstable woman but definitely isn't the exact same as Amy Adams in Woman in the Window (allegedly), will turn over a new leaf for her. I'm hoping for the best, or at the very least, that this movie is relevant enough for us to be talking about.