Magnolia Pictures has released the first Force Majeure trailer for writer/director Ruben Östlund’s wickedly funny new film, which was one of my favorites of the Toronto International Film Festival (read my review here). The story revolves around a family vacationing in the Alps who are thrown into flux when, as a seemingly devastating avalanche heads their way during lunch, the father Tomas (Johannes Kuhnke) grabs his phone and runs away instead of trying to protect his family. When the avalanche turns out to be nothing more than a dusting and everyone comes out fine, Tomas and his wife Ebba’s (Lisa Loven Kongsli) relationship begins to unravel. I caught the film at TIFF and found it to be positively delightful. It’s at turns sharply hilarious and devastatingly sad, and I imagine it will be a serious contender in the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar race.
Watch the first Force Majeure trailer after the jump. The film also stars Kristofer Hivju, Fanni Metelius, and Brady Corbet. Force Majeure opens in theaters on October 24th.
Here’s the official synopsis for Force Majeure:
A critical favorite at this year's Cannes Festival, where it took the Jury Prize in Un Certain Regard, this wickedly funny and precisely observed psychodrama tells the story of a model Swedish family—handsome businessman Tomas, his willowy wife Ebba and their two blond children—on a skiing holiday in the French Alps. The sun is shining and the slopes are spectacular but during a lunch at a mountainside restaurant an avalanche suddenly bears down on the happy diners. With people fleeing in all directions and his wife and children in state of panic, Tomas makes a decision that will shake his marriage to its core and leave him struggling to reclaim his role as family patriarch.
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