Review of Downhill (2020) by Chrismizerak — 06 Jul 2020

Most people seem to agree that the black comedy-drama “Downhill”, starring Will Ferrell and Julie-Louis Dreyfus, was a waste of time. I did not know that this was based on a remake of a 2014 Swedish film under a different name until after I watched it. As someone who went into this cold knowing hardly anything about what to expect, the fact that “Downhill” is an American remake of a Swedish film would not have mattered in the slightest anyway. Because it is rather painfully clear that “Downhill” has a rather alarming case of an identity crisis. In other words, regardless of the simplest plot description I can offer, the film does not seem to have an idea over what it is aiming to be. It follows a middle-aged couple, played by Ferrell and Louis-Dreyfus, going on a skiing trip in Austria with their two kids. One day, they witness a controlled avalanche while dining out on the patio of a restaurant within a resort. When the avalanche hits their location, they are worried about getting killed by the debris. After what turns out to be hardly a big deal yet somehow a big deal, the wife expresses disappoint with the husband fleeing the patio to seek indoor safety while she and the kids stayed where they were. After this moment, the couple basically struggles to move on to other things they could be doing, like the skiing, and a blatant misunderstanding ensues. Yes, this is the plot, ladies and gentlemen.

The overall tone behind “Downhill” seems thoroughly confused throughout as proven by my personal plot description, which hardly sounds like a captivating concept. One might even be so bold as to say that this was devised as a possible idea of an episode on “Seinfeld”, “Curb Your Enthusiasm” or other TV shows along those lines. I suspect it may have been rejected because most online trolls can think up more humorous ideas for said shows in five minutes, myself included. Either that or (what I feel the overall biggest problem with this film really is) the “central concept” (if you can call it that, it is that indecisive) just simply does not go anywhere. I am not sure if the intention was to seek laughter out of us with the cringey and awkward interactions between the couple and the other guests that they join at a restaurant or “invite” to their room. But if those instances were meant to be “comedic”, those scenes fall flat on their face. However, “Downhill” does not just fail as a comedy. It also does not work as a drama, because the couple just goes to their separate corners over a laughably pathetic reason: the scare over that controlled avalanche. You cannot in good conscience call this a character study of a rather unlikable couple either, because we are not given the context needed to understand who these folks are nor are we motivated enough to try. “Downhill” is missing any assemblage of skilled focus or confident direction in spite of having two directors at the helm. Many important elements to make a narrative like this work are absent in fact that it does not really matter what “Downhill” does right. I do not care if I smirked a few times at some individual snippets. I could care less how nice the snow and mountains might look sometimes. It does not make a difference that supporting roles from the likes of Miranda Otto and Giulio Berruti try their best to liven up the material they are working with. If the motivation and character arc progression is non-existent, there is no reason to be invested in a film of this clumsy nature anytime soon. In all fairness, I have already come across worse quality content this year than “Downhill”. Not too many of course though. What is disappointing about “Downhill” is that it does not have anything interesting to offer amidst the many concepts and ideas it wishes to include in its blend. And when the characters are ultimately not worth caring about, especially Louis-Dreyfus, and the tone is this jarring and inconsistent, that feeling is validated. You can figure out better ways to fulfill your desire to visit a skiing resort with or without actually going there than wasting an hour and a half on pitiful melodrama that wastes the talent of comedic heavy lifters such as Will Ferrell and Julie Louis-Dreyfus.