Another character study, that unfortunately is not as illuminating, is the comedy-drama Downhill. It centers around one family on skiing vacation in Europe, and one very dramatic moment that changes everything for what seems to be an already troubled marriage.

Nat Faxon’s and Jim Rash’s movie has an interesting premise, I think, and is certainly believable in terms of how everyone reacts to what happens when, during an avalanche scare, husband and father Pete (Will Ferell) grabs his cell phone and runs away, seemingly leaving his wife Billie (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and their two kids to perish. When the scare is over he saunters back, thinking nothing has changed, but in truth everything has. The rest of the movie agonizingly puts off their inevitable fight until later, as tensions continue to mount.

As realistic as this situation is, I didn’t care for how the film handled it, nor how it involved other people. I’m not a Will Ferrell fan, so I didn’t mind not liking his character for being a selfish jerk, but I also didn’t like Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ wild facial contortions every time Billie disagreed with Pete or didn’t care for what he was saying. In short, I didn’t care for these people at all, and rather hoped that their skiing vacation would be their last.

The other characters were intrusive, especially Miranda Otto as an over-sexed tour guide. And why did Pete invite his co-workers to stop by? What was his obsession with their vacation? I didn’t understand that, and the script does not provide an answer that I could tell. Nor was anything very funny. This movie does prove one old movie adage — like the characters, like the movie; don’t like the characters, don’t care for the film. I certainly did not like these characters, nor the film. ☆ ☆. 3 March 2020.