FORCE MAJEURE written and directed by Ruben Ostlund, with Johannes Kuhnke, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Clara Wettergren and Vincent Wettergren. A filmswelike release. 118 minutes. Some subtitles. Opens Friday (October 31). For venues and times, see Movies. Rating: NNNN
Ruben Ostlund’s devilishly clever festival hit is a bone-dry dissection of bourgeois happiness: you may have a great job and a loving family, but it can all be lost in a moment’s foolishness.
Force Majeure follows a picture-perfect Swedish family – Tomas (Johannes Kuhnke), Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli) and young children Vera and Harry (real-life siblings Clara and Vincent Wettergren) -on a skiing vacation in the French Alps.
Everything’s delightful until Tomas panics in a moment of potential crisis, destroying his standing as benevolent patriarch and sending him into a spiral of self-justification. The deeper he digs, the funnier Force Majeure gets and the more perceptive and uncomfortable it becomes. It goes on a little longer than it needs to, but that’s really my only complaint.
