Review #1,177: 'Force Majeure' (2014)

Wounded machismo and domestic disintegration are the order of the day in Swedish director Ruben Ostlund's comedy drama Force Majeure. Holidaying together at a fancy ski resort in the French Alps, the family at the centre of the story are presented as the pinnacle of bliss and success. Mum Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli) and Dad Tomas (Johannes Kuhnke) and both good-looking and financially comfortable, and along with their children Vera (Clara Wettergren) and Harry (Vincent Wettergren), make for a Kodak-cute unit, highlighted in the opening scene where they are badgered into posing for a few snaps by a tourist photographer. Tomas is taking a break from his busy work-life, and Ebba is happy to have her husband by her side for a week. As they ski, nap and dine together, frequent explosions - creating 'controlled avalanches' - boom in the distance, suggesting that something troubling is looming.

On their second day. the family relax in a cafe when an avalanche starts to rush in the distance. What begins as curiosity and excitement soon turns to terror as it appears that the giant wall of snow is heading straight for them. They are engulfed in mist, but are relieved to discover that the avalanche came to a halt some way off. As the fog clears, Ebba still embraces her children, while Tomas is nowhere to be seen, although he has remembered to save his iPhone. It would seem that the husband and father isn't quite the man they thought he was, and this sets off an incredibly uncomfortable yet shrewdly funny breakdown of the photogenic unit over an increasingly long week away. At first, Tomas refuses to admit any wrongdoing, but is pecked away at by his wife and eventually confronted in two particularly uncomfortable scenes over dinner and drinks. Even his buddy Mats (Game of Thrones' Kristofer Hivju) struggles to defend his cowardly actions.

Shot with a Michael Haneke-esque eye for emotional violence and domestic unravelling, Force Majeure is often far more awkward than the work of Ricky Gervais, thanks to Ostlund's ear for witty, realistic dialogue and some committed performances from the leads. Tomas' fall from hard-working patriarch to emasculated cry-baby is both brutal and utterly hilarious. Ostlund clearly doesn't like the privileged bourgeois, and has fun picking them apart. The most wince-inducing scenes are somewhat relieved by the comedic timing of Hivju, who inspires humour by merely reacting to the horror playing out in front of him, siding with his friend as his much-younger girlfriend Fanni (Fanni Metelius) comforts Ebba. The gender divide is drawn in the snow, and thanks for a conversation between Mats and Fanni where the latter throws hypotheticals at her recently-divorced fella, this is perhaps the worst film in the history of film to watch with your partner. While it could have benefited from a running-time trim, Force Majeure leaves you with the disturbing idea that you may never truly know the people closest to you.


Directed by: Ruben Östlund
Starring: Johannes Kuhnke, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Kristofer Hivju, Fanni Metelius
Country: Sweden/France/Norway/Denmark

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie