FORCE MAJEURE tells the story of a family of four on a week-long skiing vacation at a beautiful mountaintop resort.
Tomas (Johannes Kuhnke) is a workaholic Dad, suffering separation anxiety from his phone as the week begins. His wife Ebba (Lisa Kongsli) makes several telling comments to others as their vacation begins that subtly let Tomas know she is very anxious for some family time.
Tomas and Ebba, their son and daughter and a patio full of tourists are enjoying an idyllic lunch in a beautiful setting when an avalanche begins.
What starts as a spectacular event becomes terrifying as it grows and grows and approaches the patio.
As Ebba huddles her children around her to protect them, Tomas runs inside to save his own life, abandoning his family to fend for himself.
When the snow fog clears and everyone is all right, the repercussions of this moment of truth echo for the rest of the week.
The film is an interesting exploration of our true inner nature. Are we heroes? Are we truly just self preservationists at that moment?
In a traditional relationship, does the husband fail if he shows a momentary weakness in his expected role as protector? Can he recover from that lapse?
The characters, their relatives and friends explore many questions about who we really are at a primal level and the difficulties of facing who you are versus the person you hope or claim to be.
The actors are all very good and while its billed as a smart comedy, I found very few laughs in it. That's not a bad thing as the drama certainly was interesting enough to carry me, but I walked away thinking that folks in Sweden must have a much darker image of comedy than we do in America.
FORCE MAJEURE translates to "superior force" or "chance occurrence" both of which are in play in the life of the family.
An interesting take on male/female, single/married, hero/observer roles in life, we'll give FORCE a thoughtful B.
IN SWEDISH with English subtitles.
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