‎Force Majeure (2014) directed by Ruben Östlund • Reviews, film + cast • Letterboxd

Force Majeure

2014 ‘Turist’ Directed by Ruben Östlund

While holidaying in the French Alps, a Swedish family deals with acts of cowardliness as an avalanche breaks out.

Johannes Bah Kuhnke Lisa Loven Kongsli Clara Wettergren Vincent Wettergren Kristofer Hivju Fanni Metelius Karin Myrenberg Brady Corbet Johannes Moustos Jorge Lattof Adrian Heinisch Michael Breitenberger Karl Pinçon Julie Roumegoux Peter Gaunt Vera Kolupaeva Ekaterina Ilina Martin Chertudi Natacha Mutomb Dackén

118 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Matt Singer ★★★★½ 1

This is why I don't go skiing. NEVER GO SKIING YOU GUYS.
Review by Blain LaMotta ★★★★½ 8

A stunning examination of masculinity in crisis and how one split second decision under duress can change the whole infrastructure of a family unit. Increasingly tense dialogue exchanges ensue. It's also surprisingly humorous at times. Some bravura sequences in this sucker too, like the epic avalanche long take, and the stressful, thought-provoking bus ride that closes the film. The scene at the bar with the song Reload playing in the background might be my favorite though. It tells a lot by doing very little. Lots to debate in this one. Authentic performances, restrained direction, and gorgeous cinematography round things out. Any film that can make me question myself deserves all the praise I can muster. Superb job, Ruben Östlund!
Review by Vincent Lao ★★★★ 5

Ruben Östlund's sophisticated, wickedly funny, and intriguing dissection of masculinity, gender roles, marriage, and relationships is irresistibly alive, uncomfortable, yet absolutely clever. Östlund's psychodrama follows a couple and their kids in a ski vacation somewhere in France, but the couple's relationship is severely tested by an avalanche that will trigger their inner demons, as well examine their moral dilemmas.

It's like Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage meets Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf with special participation of Haneke's cold precision. Ostlund creates a very warm, emotionally explosive atmosphere even if it's set in a cold, snowy setting. You can't help but squirm and laugh with the characters as well as question your own morals when watching the film. The actors are…
Review by Jonathan White ★★★★ 18

TIFF 2014 Film #3

Reason for pick : Peter Strauss recommendation based on buzz at Cannes.

Guys … we’ve all been there before. You make one ‘teensy’ and she never lets you forget it. Alas, sometimes, well, most times .. ok, all the time we deserve it.

Swedish director Ruben Östlund takes a look the topic of gender roles, reflexes, instinct, honor, and what society expects of us in the face of a sudden crisis. What makes Force Majeure special is how Östlund shifts between tragic and hilarious with such ease, constantly keeping you off balance. Just when you think you’re catching a break, a swift punch to the gut is delivered.

The comedy is blacker than black, and the…
Review by davidehrlich ★★★★ 7

THE LONELIEST PLANET chilled and served family style.

mordantly mirthful riff on the fragility of gender roles that soars to the top of the list of films you should never watch with your partner. so good. still mulling over the last scene, though... which is some heart-in-your-throat cinema, but feels redundant in the wake of the penultimate scene? would be interested to discuss in vague terms.
Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★★½

63/100

A movie for anyone whose response to The Loneliest Planet was "But why don't they just talk about it?" Here's the answer: Because that's much less interesting—which is not to say uninteresting, by any means. Very sharp on masculinity, plausibly positing that the man's natural instinct would be staunch denial (until confronted with evidence); the presence of the children complicates matters as well, though some of their behavior rang false to me. Thought Östlund had devised a superb ending, implying an act of compassionate self-sacrifice on Mom's part to restore order, but was then flummoxed by the actual ending, which seems to undo that manufactured balance with an explicit turning of the tables. Also, the most interesting aspect for…

Recent reviews

Review by David Clarke ★★★½

Well that was a shitty vacation. When Mark Wahlberg lookalike Johannes Kuhnke panics and runs away when a controlled avalanche looks very much like it is going to hit the outdoor restaurant of the luxury ski resort he is staying in with his family, it deeply effects his wife and their relationship in this subtly humourous dramedy from Swedish director Ruben Ostland. The first time I watched this it totally left me cold,but on second viewing I appreciated it a little bit more enjoying the laid back humour of the situations and enjoying the effort of Lisa Loven Kongsli as Ebba the wife, getting the marriage back on track.
Review by igglybop ★★★★★ 2

this exact thing happened to my family over the course of 1.5 minutes on the expedition everest roller coaster at animal kingdom in disney world
Review by Cyrus Cohen ★★★★

It’s pretty absurd that “Force Majeure” was snubbed a nomination for the 2015 Oscar for Best Foreign Film, but it’s even more upsetting that Lisa Loven Kongsli was never even considered a contender for Best Actress when her performance as Ebba was easily better than Julianne Moore in “Still Alice,” Marion Cotillard in “Two Days, One Night,” Felicity Jones in “The Theory of Everything,” Rosamund Pike in “Gone Girl” or Reese Witherspoon in “Wild.” She wows in every single scene she’s in, especially when given the opportunity to openly discuss her husband’s abandonment. There’s a rawness to her emotionality, something which still feels rare in an oversaturated, uber-emotional media landscape of actors fighting tooth & nail for Oscar noms. The film…
Review by Molly Moloney ★★★★

brilliant

tension sharp as a whip and as brittle as ice
Review by Fio Karpenko ★★★★★

bruh
Review by whatthe ★★★

I'm probably done diving into Ostland's filmography. Pretty-to-look-at cynicism is easy to come by in movies, and a lot of the time it's more cohesive than this movie.
Review by rricardorrivera ★★★½

Ten minutes in, and I was laughing like a madman.
Far from the slow and thoughtful fare one would associate with European cinema, Force Majeure possesses such a wicked sense of humor, that one can’t help but be in awe at the picture, as if the creator were a genius of sorts.

But humor is not enough. So we get horror. And drama. And some of the most uncomfortable, yet hilarious moments to grace the screen this year.
It is one thing to show your main character weeping, and make the audience feel sorry for him.
It is another to show him weeping, and make the audience laugh at him.

It is something out of this world to show him lying on the floor in his underwear, crying his eyes out, while the audience both laughs and feels immensely sad for him.
Review by Claudia Bailey

this was hard to watch, like physically made me tense but genius.
Review by Zeke Knott ★★★★

Just a really arduous watch for me. Not because of anything in the movie, mostly just the buffering. This experience I just had made the most compelling case for blu-ray I've ever heard. If only I had the money to buy them.

Anyway,

I really love the storyline in this film, all the dialogue is great, it's paced super well, it's got interesting themes that are easy to tap into and understand on a first watch. A couple of gripes. The use of that one song was just really grating and annoying after a while, and the cinematography feels a little bit sterile, lifeless. Everything is framed well and there's a lot of beautiful shots here, but there's a lack of emotion to a lot of the images. Still, I don't want those two things to take away from how much I really enjoyed the narrative. Super fascinating.