PARK CITY, Utah — Sometimes combining a ton of things we love makes for something even better. See: Long Island Iced Tea and puggles. Other times, mixing all our favorite stuff causes a regrettable mess. See: Chocolate wine and the movie “Downhill.”
That comedy, which premiered Sunday at the Sundance Film Festival, brings together Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Will Ferrell and the plot of an acclaimed European movie. “Count me in!,” you think. But, sadly, merlot just isn’t meant to taste like cocoa beans.
The medium-funny “Downhill” is a remake of a European film called “Force Majeure,” and, like when your friend starts casually calling elevators “lifts,” something feels not quite right about it. Louis-Dreyfus and Ferrell, both broad comics, are shoved into an overly subtle and somewhat pretentious mold that makes more sense for John Krasinski than Elaine Bennes and Ron Burgundy.
You impatiently tap your foot waiting for the belly laughs to come. They never do.
Ferrell and Louis-Dreyfus play a married couple, Billie and Pete, who’ve taken their two young sons on a ski trip, while also working out deep-seated relationship issues. That marital crack turns into a chasm when, during a controlled avalanche, Pete bolts inside the lodge, leaving his family to fend for themselves. Nobody dies — that would be too interesting! — but Billie is furious and the two end up spending most of their remaining holiday apart.
That is a dumb-as-Ralph-Wiggum inciting incident for a comedy. Americans are known around the world for our volume and forthrightness, and for such a trivial, existential and, dare I say, European tiff to derail an expensive vacation for more than 20 minutes doesn’t ring true. At all. But that’s what “Downhill” has got to work with.
Well, that, and some tremendous supporting performances that outshine the legendary leads. Miranda Otto as a sexually frustrated Austrian hotel worker and Kristofer Hivju (Tormund from “Game of Thrones”) as a mountain safety patrolman get more laughs in their five minutes onscreen than the entire rest of the movie does.
There’s also a sexy lothario ski instructor named Guglielmo who tries to seduce Billie. He’s played by actor Giulio Berruti. Delightfully, Berruti’s first-ever film credit was in 2003’s “The Lizzie McGuire Movie,” in which he assumed the role of Italian #2. Louis-Dreyfus is amusing trapped in a cabin with a turned-on stallion in the silly-steamy sequence. The closest thing to a bit Ferrell gets is when he incorrectly believes a younger woman is hitting on him at the bar.
But on the whole, the pairing of these two comedy titans is forgettable and slow as an ice age. To put it in skiing parlance: “Downhill” is pizza-ing when it needs to french-fry.
Ref;nypost.com