Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Will Ferrell star in the Downhill trailer as Billie and Pete, a couple whose marriage hits a snag after Pete chooses to save himself (and his phone) instead of his loved ones when they’re nearly killed by an avalanche during a family ski vacation in the Alps. The upcoming comedy-drama is an english-language remake of the 2014 Swedish film Force Majeure and will make its worldwide premiere at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, ahead of its theatrical release in February.
Behind the camera, Downhill was directed by critically-acclaimed The Way Way Back duo Nat Faxon and Jim Rash from a script the Oscar-winners (who snagged their Academy Award for co-writing Alexander Payne’s dramedy The Descendants) wrote with Succession creator Jesse Armstrong. This is only their third feature as a pair of directors (including the 2014 TV movie Patrick), so it will be interesting to see if Faxon and Rash are able to match the critical success of their earlier work this time around.
The trailer for Downhill is now online courtesy of its distributor, Fox Searchlight. After starting off with an awkwardly funny scene of Billie and Pete posing for a photo with their kids on their ski trip, the trailer reveals Pete’s father passed away some eight months prior (something Pete can’t stop bringing up) and inspired them to take this vacation in the first place. However, when Pete panics and abandons his family during an almost-deadly avalanche, his brief moment of weakness forces him and Billie to ask some hard questions about their marriage and priorities in life. Take a look, below.
Faxon, Rash, and Armstrong have all made their name writing about the messiness of families and relationships in often bitingly humorous and insightful ways, so the three are comfortably in their wheelhouse with Downhill. Louis-Dreyfus is far from a stranger to this type of sharply comedic material either, and her years of starring on Seinfeld and Veep appear to serve her well here, judging by the trailer. Ferrell, on the other hand, has only occasionally branched out from the broad and raunchy (though often satirical) comedies he’s best known for over the years, but his performances in comedy-dramas like Stranger Than Fiction suggest he should be up to the challenge of portraying a more down to earth comical lead in Downhill. He’s also an executive producer on Succession, so he’s already well-versed with Armstrong’s writing style in particular.
Fox has scheduled Downhill to open on February 14 next year, as counter-programming to many studio films arriving over that frame (Sonic the Hedgehog, Fantasy Island, and so forth). For those in the mood for a good anti-Valentine’s Day movie, this one might just do the trick.
Source: Fox Searchlight
