Nat Faxon and Jim Rash brought a deft blend of comedy and drama to their Oscar winning screenplay of The Descendants (which was based on the Kaui Hart Hemmings book), and now their adaptation skills are displayed in Downhill. A remake of the acclaimed feature Force Majeure, the tale centers on a married couple named Billie and Pete (Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Will Ferrell) who become fractured after Pete acts in a cowardly fashion during an avalanche. Zach Woods co-stars as Pete’s co-worker (aptly named Zach), with Zoë Chao co-starring as Zach’s free-spirited girlfriend Rosie.
The picture’s most eye-catching scenes, upon first blush, is its scenery (it’s set in the Austrian Alps), but the standout sequence comes from a testy exchange between the couple in front of a shocked Zach and Rosie.
“There’s a play like quality to this, so you’re really examining characters in these movies,” said Rash who elaborates on the aforementioned sequence. “They quite literally have a play where there are these people in a living room, in a hotel suite, going at it in front of relative strangers, at least in our version. There is this wonderful sense of watching two people have an incident happen to them and question just the basic nature of their partnership.”
Click on the media bar to hear Nat Faxon and Jim Rash talk about bringing a sense of honesty and authenticity to Downhill:
Downhill hits theaters February 14.
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Posted by: Greg Srisavasdi