Review of Force Majeure (2014) by Thirdrail — 16 Jan 2015

Force Majeure is a fascinating exploration of how sexism also creates brutally unfair obstacles for men, the borderline sociopathic nature of female attraction (and how difficult those vestiges of prehistoric wiring make things in the context of a modern life), and the pitfalls of living to be seen, rather than being seen living. It's like a feminist movie for guys. I'm going to make this one required viewing for girls I take seriously in the future.

My only real complaint with the film is that as the story goes on, the wife becomes painfully stupid and vicious. At first her attempts to reconcile the event with her husband seem sincere, and sympathetic, but by the time she's trying to humiliate him in front of his friend with the cell phone video (notice she doesn't bring that video up when it's just the two of them), I no longer understood why her husband was responding to her with anything but divorce papers. I think you could have told the same story without her turning into a psychotic ball-busting terrorphile.