There are no injuries, but after the avalanche hits it’s all downhill for the picture postcard perfect family on a ski vacation in the Swiss Alps in the Swedish language film “Force Majeure.”
If relationships are fragile eco-systems, few are more so than a marriage. And how the two spouses reacted to the heart-stopping but ultimately benign act of God – the title is also the term for how such an act can void a legal contract – changes the way they feel about each other and themselves, and poisons every minute they spend with their children.
At first we see them pose for group photos, and in a co-sleeping tangle in their long underwear after a long day on the slopes.
But while at lunch on the patio, they watch with interest as a small avalanche slides the hill and then in horror as it threatens to consume them.
The lodge is nestled in a valley under a mountain range so pristine it looks like another planet. But in the way that a single event can change everything, what was formerly breathtakingly scenic now seems ominous. Each lurch of the ski lift, each explosion designed to prevent avalanches, each crying child, even the thumping lodge disco are like manifestations of the tension and strangeness now between them.
These feelings are made literal in dark night of the soul scenes as the couple – Johannes Kuhnke, an Ewan McGregor lookalike, and Lisa Loven Kongsli – confront their failings and disappointments.
Such tectonic shifts usually precede realignment, but as writer-director Ruben Ostland steers the couple through the rubble, their uncertainty is contagious and the horizon is obscured by fog and snow.
Three stars
With Johannes Kuhnke, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Clara Wettergren, Vincent Wettergern, Kristofer Hivji, Fanny Metelius. Produced by Phillipe Bober, Erik Hemmendorff, Marie Kjellson. Written and directed by Ruben Ostland. In Swedish and English with English subtitles. Rated R; language, nudity. Approximate running time: 118 minutes.
Friday at the Oriental Theater.
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