Force Majeure

Just who do you think you are? In the blackly funny, lightly brutalizing Swedish film Force Majeure, those seven little words mark the collective cri de coeur of a husband and wife facing a major existential crisis. At a ski resort in the French Alps, a family of four—Tomas, Ebba, and their two kids and Vincent Wettergren)—go about their holiday. During a passing moment of peril (let’s keep it vague), a decision is made—or, more charitably, a body’s automatic response takes over. Nature punches nurture in the face, and for the rest of the film, the family tries to recover from the blow. Writer/director Ruben Östlund is aces with both the human scale and the biblically awesome. All is menace in this exploration of ruined identity, as Östlund, a kind of grim mischief­maker, sharpens his stick, readying for his next kill. Rated R.