Rent Force Majeure (2014)

3.3 of 5 from 621 ratings
1h 55min
Rent Force Majeure (aka Turist) Online DVD & Blu-ray Rental
  • General info
  • Available formats
Synopsis:
The sun is beaming and the ski slopes are spectacular for Tomas, his wife Ebba and their two children. However, during a lunch at a mountainside restaurant an avalanche suddenly bears down upon the happy diners. As the wall of snow gets ever closer, Tomas makes a split-second decision in a moment of panic that will engulf and shake his relationship with his wife and children and leave him struggling to reclaim his role as the family patriarch.
Actors:
, , Clara Wettergren, , , Fanni Metelius, , , Johannes Moustos, Jorge Lattof, Adrian Heinisch, Michael Breitenberger, Karl Pincon, Julie Roumogoux, Peter Gaunt, Vera Kolupaeva, Ekaterina Ilina, Martín Chertudi, Natacha Mutomb Dackén,
Directors:
Producers:
Philippe Bober, Erik Hemmendorff, Marie Kjellson
Writers:
Ruben Östlund
Aka:
Turist
Studio:
Artificial Eye Film Company Ltd.
Genres:
Action & Adventure, Comedy, Drama
Collections:
A History of Sports Films (Winter Edition), Getting to Know..., Getting to Know: Will Ferrell, Oscar Nominations Competition 2023, A Brief History of Film..., Top 10 European Remakes, Top 10 Winter and Snow Films, Top Films
Awards:

2014 Cannes Un Certain Regard Jury Prize

BBFC:
Release Date:
29/06/2015
Run Time:
115 minutes
Languages:
English Dolby Digital 2.0, English Dolby Digital 5.1, French Dolby Digital 2.0, French Dolby Digital 5.1, Norwegian Dolby Digital 2.0, Norwegian Dolby Digital 5.1, Swedish Dolby Digital 2.0, Swedish Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles:
English
DVD Regions:
Region 2
Formats:
Pal
Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen 2.40:1
Colour:
Colour
Bonus:
  • The Making Of 'Force Majeure'
  • Director and Producer Watch the Oscar Nominations
  • Trailer
BBFC:
Release Date:
29/06/2015
Run Time:
119 minutes
Languages:
English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, English LPCM Stereo, French DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, French LPCM Stereo, Norwegian DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, Norwegian LPCM Stereo, Swedish LPCM Stereo, Swedish DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Subtitles:
English
Formats:
Pal
Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen 2.40:1
Colour:
Colour
BLU-RAY Regions:
B
Bonus:
  • The Making Of 'Force Majeure'
  • Director and Producer Watch the Oscar Nominations
  • Trailer

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Reviews (8) of Force Majeure

Wordy, snowy, Scandi-drama and gender-fest - Force Majeure review by PV

Spoiler Alert
31/08/2015

This film is billed as a 'comedy'. Well, you couldn't fooled me. I didn't laugh once - except when I suspect I shouldn't have been laughing! - though I yawned a good deal. I started looking at my watch 20 minutes in, but stayed with it.

Gosh this is a wordy movie. Sounds like something from the theatre of perhaps something that grew out of one of those awful gender workshops they used to have in polytechnic women's studies departments circa 1973.

It's also a very snowy movie - in fact, I don't think I have ever seen a film with as much snow - and it's all set in a ski-ing resort. To be honest, the best parts involve nice cinematographer shots of snowy mountains with (I think) Beethoven (or maybe Wagner) on the soundtrack.

A clunky second act starts with the arrival of friends, and we then move on to endless pontificating about what it means to be a man.

To be honest, I thought the female wife character to self-pitying and unreasonable, I was shouting at her husband to divorce her and get some joy back into his life instead of staying with that over-earnest diva.

I wouldn't wish to have lunch with these people, let alone go ski-ing with them. In the end I was hoping for a huge avalanche to shut these self-pitying people up. But no such luck.

A very unrealistic ending rounds off this clunky psychoanalytic movie which will no doubt appeal to some more than others. A VERY irritating and odd film.

5 out of 10 members found this review helpful.

Damp, unfocused and overlong - Force Majeure review by CP Customer

Spoiler Alert
19/01/2016

A family on a skiing holiday in the alps, while sitting on an outdoor terrace, witness an avalanche that threatens to sweep them away. At this point of danger and crisis, while the mother tends to the children, the father runs away and, when everyone survives, has to live with the consequences .

It's a great set-up to an overlong, tedious film that talks, talks and talks some more, ambling along, taking some strange digressions (what looks like the father's fantasy of being involved in a male-only, naked rave) that might well have something to do with the issues of masculinity, family duty and responsibility. It's hard to say. There's a lot of talking, but not much gets said. As with a lot of European films these days, this wanders on its way for nearly two hours before finally ending with the idea that the mother, who has held her husband to account, is no better and is happy to desert her children. As a reward, the husband starts smoking in a most manly way. No, I've no idea. A great set-up squandered by a lot of moaning, crying and self-pity, but nothing that cuts to the heart of the issue.

This is, as is noted by the other reviewer, billed as a "Comedy" or even "Dark Comedy". I've seen funnier cold sores.

2 out of 5 members found this review helpful.

Is this Sweden's idea of humour? - Force Majeure review by PR

Spoiler Alert
07/08/2016

As has clearly been stated by all other reviewers , this most certainly isn't a comedy. But then it isn't good enough to make it as a drama either. At best it might be interesting as an anthropological curiosity - that is, assuming it accurately portrays Swedish attitudes. But for their sake, I hope it doesn't…

2 out of 6 members found this review helpful.

Critic review

Force Majeure (aka Turist) review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

Skiing was always one of my favorite sports as a kid, perhaps because I enjoyed the independence of zooming down a snowy hill. It was the perfect getaway from parents to clear your head and think for yourself. But for the family of four in Force Majeure, isolation is the last thing that they need. It breeds a sense of doubt and uneasiness for a family that appears on the brink of a divorce. Their ski vacation at a massive mountain retreat is anything but when forced to approach their own instincts. The photo they pose for in the opening scene, smiles and all, is merely the exterior of something more fearful.

The spark that brings about a wave of questioning results from a morning breakfast on the patio of the resort. A series of controlled avalanches hits too close and assaults the poor family with a wave of falling powder. As the frightening wave consumes the patio, we hear the brother and sister call out to their father Tomas. Like those around him, Tomas panics and scurries to safety without his family. After a minute or two of white haze, the guests shuffle back to their tables to resume their meals after a frightening ordeal. The mother, Ebba, is naturally angered that her husband would leave them behind. But she bottles that anger up temporarily as Tomas just shrugs off the event as if he did nothing wrong. The brother and sister are just annoyed and disturbed by their parents making more mistakes.

Ebba instead decides to unload her frustration during dinner with another couple. When relaying the events of the avalanche, Ebba harps on how cowardly Tomas behaved during this situation, favoring his phone over his son. But Tomas still believes he didn’t do what Ebba attests, arriving at the conclusion that they both have a Rashomon style reasoning of the account. They both try to let the issue go with a hug, but that feeling simply cannot be shaken. The two of them have some difficult aspects of their marriage and themselves to deal with, but a ski vacation with the family does not make the best environment for rekindling (at least at first).

Director Ruben Östlund doesn’t side with either the man or the woman, pulling the viewer back to witness the scuffles of marriage from a distance. It stages a traumatic what-if and let’s the emotions flow with the audience awkwardly distancing themselves. Most of the time we see the couples talking in the hotel hallway is from another level, sharing the same view as the voyeuristic janitor. Other times in the scene we’re placed right in the middle of the trainwreck. Tomas has a massive breakdown in front of Ebba and we see the closeup from her perspective. The camera is mostly where we want it to be for these scenes; close enough for the informative bits, yet distant enough for when things get too personal.

The entire film is gorgeously shot from the Swedish mountain resort. Östlund let’s us take in all its silent beauty, broken up by small burst of distant explosions for controlling avalanches. We can feel the isolation and desolation from an endless land of white. Characters often become lost in all the snow be it from long-shots at a distance or the windy kick of powder creating a fog. Little moments of the trip are given some time to breathe in the ambiance. The ski rides up the hill, via rope towing the children or the escalating chairs for the adults, are all kept quiet with the characters given much time to dwell on their own thoughts. The kids bring along a drone toy that they fly outside the window during the evening hours. The first night features the entire family sleeping in the same bed, a scenario every parent is familiar with.

Force Majeure is a film that’s hard to pin down in its exact tone, but it delivers on the stylish examination of human instinct with flying colors. It holds on its subject and never lets go. Tomas’ old pal tries to defend his friend when presented with the facts, but that only leads to another argument in which Tomas’ friend bickers with his young girlfriend back at their hotel room. Such scenes give the impression that, no matter how secure we may feel around others, there’s always a coat we wear for shielding something inside we hate. Östlund doesn’t want to strip his characters down to this level of base beasts, but he wants us to acknowledge this personality and come to terms with the masks we wear. Through that offbeat examination, a family learns to become better people, no matter how awful they believe they appear. One can only hope such a film does more good for a couple than those silly what-if couples games that often breed similar fights of awkwardness.

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