Hell isn’t just other people, argues Ruben Östlund in the wonderfully bleak and mordant Force Majeure. It’s the people you know best.
In theory, the vacation to a fancy ski lodge in the French Alps was just what Tomas (Johannes Kuhnke) and Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli) needed. It would give them a chance to reconnect—he’d been working too many hours; there had been fights, lost trust—and give their kids a chance to have fun shushing on the slopes. They’d even get to trot out their expensive ski gear and show the world how beautiful and happy they all were. Because what’s more uplifting than convincing others of your familial bliss?
In fact, the ski trip only serves to exacerbate their problems. The snowy mountains make them feel miniature, powerless—isolated from each other. The close quarters of the room—eating, sleeping, brushing their teeth, always together—gives them claustrophobia. The kids get tetchy; a kind of monotony sets in.
All of this is stunningly filmed by Swedish director Östlund, who treats snow almost like outer space—both shimmeringly beautiful and terrifying in its vast starkness.
And then, one day, the family is sitting at a mountainside deck restaurant when an avalanche seems to start. It’s controlled, Tomas explains reassuringly. It looks scary but isn’t. Suddenly, the avalanche gets more ferocious; it’s bearing down on them. People scatter, scream, take cover. And then, just like that, it’s over.
Turns out, the avalanche was a false alarm. Intense, but not deadly. Ebba emerges from the snow— Östlund films it as a disorienting white wash that slowly dissolves—clutching her two terrified children. Tomas wanders back onto the deck. But where had he gone?
Where Tomas went, and what it meant that he essentially abandoned his family in their time of need, will haunt the rest of the film.
That night, at dinner with new friends, Ebba brings up his disappearance, accusingly. He denies it, infuriating her.
“You’re mistaken,” he says. “I never left.”
His denial is almost worse than his betrayal, in her mind. She needles him about it, mercilessly. Just when it seems like things have gotten back to normal, she brings it up again, at yet another dinner party. This time, Tomas and Ebba are like George and Martha, eviscerating each other, as their stunned dinner guests try to be diplomatic. A video of the events is wielded on a smartphone, proving that Ebba is right. Now what? Maybe Tomas was saving himself to dig his family out, offers Mats (Kristofer Hivju), one of their guests. Afterward, Mats and his much younger girlfriend (Fanni Metelius) argue. The girlfriend suggests that Mats is not the type who would’ve saved his family—and this affront to Mats’ masculinity ruins their vacation, too.
Masculinity, the role of the father as protector, and how Tomas violated that role, is one of the big themes here. Is he in denial because he’s disgusted by his own behavior, as he later tearfully admits? Or because he’s something of a compulsive liar?
And does Ebba’s insistence that he own up to his moment of weakness betray a cruel streak of her own?
Throughout all of this, Tomas and Ebba’s children, wide-eyed and wary, are acutely attuned to their parents’ troubles. They try to force the issue, at one point demanding that Ebba join an awkward family hug. The children don’t represent innocence so much as judge and jury. They are the film’s all-seeing conscience.
Marriage itself is a kind of conformity, Östlund suggests. We sacrifice individuality for the safety and stability of the family structure. But what if someone violates that structure? That’s what Tomas and Ebba—and we, the rapt audience—are left to ponder.