Force Majeure (2014)

Force Majeure follows a seemingly carefree Swedish family — Tomas, his wife Ebba and their two children — on a ski holiday in the French Alps. During an outdoor lunch at a mountainside restaurant, a sudden avalanche sends diners scattering and exposes a single, shocking moment of instinctive panic: Tomas runs. The avalanche itself ultimately fails to deliver the catastrophe everyone feared, but the aftermath detonates something far more destructive inside the family. What begins as a contained domestic drama becomes a sharp, forensic examination of trust, gender roles and modern marriage as Tomas and Ebba confront what that moment says about their relationship and identity. Tonally the film mixes deadpan, awkward comedy with accumulating psychological tension. Scenes of ordinary family life — skiing, posing for photos, quiet hotel-room moments — are undercut by long, uncomfortable silences, pointed small-talk and escalating arguments. Secondary characters and generational divides add perspective and heat to the central conflict, while the audience is invited to weigh guilt, cowardice and self-preservation without neat answers. The result is a quiet, unnerving drama that keeps slipping between satire and heartbreak. If you see Force Majeure you will come away both amused and unsettled: you’ll laugh at the social awkwardness and darkly comic interactions, wince at the moral implications of one split-second choice, and linger on the film’s questions about who we are under pressure. It’s the kind of movie that provokes discussion long after the credits roll.

Actors: Johannes Kuhnke, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Clara Wettergren

Director: Ruben Östlund

Runtime: 120 min

Genres: Comedy, Drama

87 /100 7.2 /10 8.0 /10