Netflix Pick: Force Majeure

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Force Majeure is slow, uneventful, and thoroughly entertaining. Ruben Ostlund’s arthouse black comedy is a disaster movie in which the disaster never actually materializes, leaving its characters to deal with a much bigger emotional catastrophe, to both dramatic and humorous results. It’s pretty rare to find great foreign films on Netflix, so if you’re looking to expand your cinematic palette a bit, this one’s a great place to start.

Smug Alpine vacationers Tomas (Johannes Bah Kuhnke), Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli), and their two young children are the image of upper-class familial perfection at a pristine, sterile, and expensive hotel. They ski together, brush their teeth together, and sleep together in one bed wearing matching long underwear, in an image that could be mistaken for an L.L. Bean advertisement. Their bliss is abruptly interrupted by a near-miss with a controlled avalanche that sends Tomas sprinting for cover, leaving his wife and screaming kids to fend for themselves. The avalanche doesn’t hit, but Tomas’s blatant cowardice throws the family into an existential crisis.

Tomas coolly plays off his gaffe as an involuntary survival reflex, but Ebba and the kids know better. The kids ice out their parents, while Ebba questions the very foundation of her marriage. A conversation with casual polyamorist Charlotte (Karin Myrenberg) has her arguing fiercely for the value of monogamy and the traditional nuclear family, but she’s trying to convince herself more than she’s trying to convince her new friend. If it can fall apart so easily, is a family even worth having? Charlotte’s arrangement has none of the values of exclusivity, commitment, and longevity that are important to Ebba and Tomas, but she’s the happiest person at the hotel. If her relationship situation changes, fine. Her identity isn’t wrapped up in who she spends her life with.

While Ebba desperately tries to rationalize her life choices, Tomas spirals under the realization that he’s not the protective, heroic man that he’s supposed to be. Unable to face up to what happened, he copes by lying to himself, his wife, and anyone else who will listen. Although his initial action was reprehensible, his ultimate betrayal of his family lies in his inability to be honest with them in the wake of the crisis.

On top of the emotionally heavy subject matter, Ostlund’s directorial style would seem to demand a lot from the audience’s attention span. The cinematography is composed primarily of static shots, many of which last several minutes without a cut. Slow pacing and lack of conventional narrative cues also present a challenge to the viewer. But Ostlund’s clever and skillful use of “artsy” stylistic elements contribute to both comedy and suspense, making Force Majeure grippingly entertaining even at two hours running time.

In the funniest scene, we get nothing but an endless wide shot of Tomas and buddy Mats (Kristofer Hivju) lounging outside at the ski lodge, beers in hand. They are interrupted by some young ladies, only one of which we see, who build up and then promptly demolish the men’s egos. It’s a joke we’ve all seen play out before, but Ostlund’s direction makes it fresh. A typical director would likely include a number of cuts in this type of scene, but the voyeuristic nature of the static camera makes the moment feel realistic and spontaneous.

Ostlund’s deliberate style is also used to great dramatic effect. Long periods of inactivity build suspense to the point where we’re certain something is about to happen, even though the plot gives us no indication as to what that might be. Far being boring, the tension kept me glued to the screen.

Force Majeure has been on Netflix for quite a while, so I’d give it a try before it gets booted, even if you’re not typically inclined to arthouse fare. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Netflix Pick: Dope

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In this (maybe) ongoing feature I’ll talk about a movie that’s currently on Netflix streaming.

At various times in my movie-loving life (read: my life), I have had what I will refer to as a Default Movie. A Default Movie is one that I enjoy so much that I will watch it by default when there’s nothing else new or particularly interesting to watch (hence the name). When I was a kid, my brother and I watched The Lord of the Rings on a near weekly basis for what seemed like several years. In college, I used to carry around my DVD copy of American Graffiti in my backpack so that I could watch it whenever I wanted. Now the optical drive has disappeared from my MacBook, and Netflix has become my primary movie-watching medium. It’s how The Aviator and the The Big Lebowski entered my life, both of which became my Default Movie for the span of about three months apiece.

In the spring of this year, right around the time I should have been studying for my graduate school finals, I discovered director Rick Famuyiwa’s hip-hop infused high school comedy Dope and watched it three times in the span of a week. New Default Movie. Since then, I’ve had a little time to think about why the film stuck with me the way it did.

Dope opens with a definition of the titular word on a black background: it can mean a drug, a stupid person, or a slang term for excellent. All three definitions are explored in the film that follows.

The story centers on Malcolm (Shameik Moore), a young geek who lives in The Bottoms, a gang-ridden neighborhood of Inglewood, with his buddies Diggy (Kiersey Clemons)  and Jib (Tony Revolori). The trio enjoy “white shit”, such as Skateboards, Donald Glover, and Applying To College. Being a geek in The Bottoms isn’t easy: Jib suggests that someone should make “an app like Waze to avoid all these hood traps” as they try to navigate home without a run-in with the local chapter of the Bloods, who routinely try to confiscate their sneakers and bicycles.

The kids get roped into attending a drug dealer’s birthday party, where a mix-up during a police raid leaves Malcolm saddled with a huge amount of illegal drugs the day before his interview for Harvard. It’s a modern re-working of Risky Business, except this time the kid actually deserves to go to the Ivy League school.

Dope is the funniest movie I’ve seen all year. The three leads have comedic chops in spades, and the cast of bad guys and weirdos they encounter are just as hilarious. A standout scene occurs when the kids encounter Jaleel (Quincy Brown), a wannabe gangster who lives in upscale Ladera Heights. He’s so obsessed with his imagined status as a Blood that he replaces the letter C with the letter B when he speaks to show his disdain for the Crips, in a case of what Jib labels “criplexia”. It’s ridiculous, but also speaks to the complicated politics of gang-adjacent communities. Jaleel lives comfortably away from the dangers of the gangs, yet still feels a need to maintain an identity that ties him to them.

This struggle between the desire to escape Inglewood and the desire to gain some status within it permeates Dope. Kids like Malcolm are stuck in the middle, wanting a better life but hampered by the reality that gaining one will be seen by many as a betrayal of their roots. This concept runs deep in hip-hop music, but before seeing Dope, I didn’t really understand it.

Bonus Spotify pick: Dope’s soundtrack is of course loaded with awesome 90’s hip hop (you can skip the cringey pop-punk songs that Pharrell wrote).