Now I love her.
She was brilliant in Downhill. Her face was a canvas. If course she is a genius comedienne, but here is had a nice dramatic/comedic turn.
I haven’t seen all of Force Majeur yet, but Downhill was great by itself. This is a story of a woman who is grossly misunderstood by her husband. While on a ski trip in the Alps, the family is hit by a minor avalanche while eating lunch at the ski lodge. The dad grabs his phone from and runs while the mom is boxed in at the table with her kids. Billie is shaken not only that her husband left, but is more disappointed (crushed, heartbroken, furious) when he can’t admit what he did. He argues that his reality is different from her reality while not acknowledging that he ran away, which he did. Those of us watching the movie saw it happen. Whether or not it was so wrong that he ran away becomes irrelevant as he digs himself into a deeper hole by denying anything happened at all.
Been there, done that.
It was so nice to see a movie about middle-aged marriage from a woman’s point of view. I am guessing there are going to be a decent number of men who watch this and think Billie is a strung out bitch. But this is JLD, a well educated, smart, beautiful woman who is a caring mom and a cancer survivor. I remember watching her cheer on her son who played basketball at NU. So sweet. Okay - I know actors aren’t their characters ala Brian Cranston isn’t Walter White. But still. Billie is struggling to communicate with her tone deaf husband and it is both painful and relatable to watch.
I haven’t read that many reviews but I am guessing there is a correlation between age, martial status and gender relative to how much it is liked. In other words, I could see where some privileged and sexist white men wouldn’t like it.
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