Seeing a new movie on the way that co-stars Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus might get you looking forward to one of the funniest comedies of 2020. And while, that might still be the case, the new movie Downhill isn't looking to be the laugh out loud comedy that you might expect from a par of stars like these. Instead, there's a lot going on in Downhill that maybe isn't entirely funny but might still be great.
The first trailer for the new film debuted last night thanks to Jimmy Kimmel Live and now it's here for all of us to take in. Check out Downhill below.
A family is on a ski vacation in the mountains when a random avalanche engulfs the resort where the family is enjoying the view. While mom and the kids cower in fear, dad takes off for safety. The result is a schism in the family causing husband and wife to reevaluate their entire relationship. If nothing else, it's an interesting movie to release on Valentine's Day. It doesn't exactly look like date movie material.
If this looks vaguely, or incredibly, familiar, that's because Downhill is an English language remake of the Swedish film Force Majeure, That film shares the same premise as Downhill and the avalanche sequence from the original movie actually went viral on social media not that long ago, mostly, it seems, because a lot of people didn't realize it was a shot from a movie. But because it did, the image of a man getting up and running away from an oncoming avalanche while others get overwhelmed might ring a bell.
While Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus may be best known for making us laugh, both have shown their dramatic abilities in the past, and both elements of their talent are clearly on display here, and will be necessary to make Downhill work. As far as the trailer shows, it all looks solid. Downhill looks to be balancing its emotional story with comedy quite well.
Force Majeure was a very popular movie when it was released in 2014, and so it's unsurprising that an English language remake came out of it. Most movies that make the transition from another country to English seem to be of the anime or horror movie variety, but there always a few dramatic stories that make the leap as well. In the past year we've seen English language remakes of foreign films that became the likes of Miss Bala and The Upside. These movies aren't usually massive box office forces, but good stories usually transcend language, and so they work in English as well as any other.
The fact that Downhill has been selected for the Sundance Film Festival next year is certainly a sign that there's at least something worth seeing here. There's usually at least one Sundance movie every year that blows people away, maybe this one will be it. We'll find out in February.
