Force Majeure
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Force Majeure

A Swedish family – Tomas (Johannes Kuhnke), Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli) and their two children – are on holiday in the Alps when an avalanche (supposedly a controlled one set off by the ski lodge to control the snow on the slopes) gets out of hand. Snow billows over the lodge where the family are watching; the husband panics and runs, leaving his wife and children behind. It turns out to be a false alarm, but when he returns his wife can’t forgive him, even though initially he laughs it off as nothing, and gradually cracks begin to show in their relationship.
Swedish director Ruben Östlund has created an incisive and often grimly funny look at the faultlines in a relationship, where their love is often dwarfed by each other’s anger just as they themselves are dwarfed by the mountains all around. While this has been pitched as a “what would you do” story – would you save yourself at the expense of your loved ones? – the film itself is much more about the aftermath. Can love survive when a partner’s inner nature is put on show? Can someone continue to live their life when the very basis it’s built is revealed as a falsehood?
These are the questions that animate this film; they’re the kind of things that linger long after the credits roll.