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Movie review | MSP - Ruin and Rose

MSP dares to experiment.

by Robert Bachmann 10/23/2016
Matchstick Productions, responsible for films such as Claim? and Days of My Youth,?? are taking a different approach with this year's Ruin and Rose. With Ben Sturgulewski, previously with Sweetgrass, a producer known for more thoughtful ski films takes the helm. With MSP, he continues his style and mixes the ski action with a post-apocalyptic desert story, which is given as much space as the ski scenes. PGler Brecher has a clear opinion on this.

Top drivers, top production company, top shots in top locations. You'd think these would be ingredients that could only make a top movie. Well, well. Well, here's the thing... On the one hand, we have a soundtrack that, for the most part, comes across as pretty insignificant: semi-electronic downtempo music underpins heroic ski shots. It should be clear that this doesn't necessarily get you going in the long run. Unfortunately, these are the film's interesting moments.

On the other hand, we have an end-time story that gets by exclusively with movie kids. A kind of primary school Mad Max without the violence, leather, rivets, psycho bangers and motorcycles, narrated by a sniffy 8-year-old. Sounds good? Look forward to what feels like 45 minutes of this inspiring story. Briefly broken down: The world is perishing because of people's stupidity, everything is a desert. Children hang out near an old house where a skier apparently used to live. Child finds snow globe. Snow globe is madness. Dramatic twist! Water runs out. Child sets off on skis to find a mountain and snow. Child returns: happy ending. Accompanied by endlessly long-winded children's talk that makes you wish he would shut up or at least blow his nose for once.

Luckily, the Disney film is interspersed with clips of actual skiing. Pretty good skiing, too. With pretty good shots and pretty boring music. I've seen the movie just under 1 1/2 times now, the first time actually without skipping parts. I fought hard with sleep. I'm not writing that because it sounds mean, by the way, it's the truth.

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The trailer

The real question that kept me wondering throughout the movie was why MSP are making such bad movies all of a sudden and what exactly is the reason for that? Even though McConkey is no longer with us and Sean Pettit is doing his own thing, they still have enough characters on board to make a likable movie. Why not give the drivers the space they need to play up their charms? Pettit had the same problem last season with The Masquerade: movie story written to accompany the ski shots in an interesting way, music bravely chosen. Cool thinking, but in the end too lengthy and monotonous.

I'm not saying that I only want ski porn with no interludes, or that invented stories have no place in ski films. What I'm missing here is likeable entertainment. I know that doesn't fit in with Red Bull. But seriously, if you can only produce beer-serious crap as a soda producer because humor isn't epic enough, then I don't need ski films from the soda producer. My personal conclusion on Ruin and Rose: a waste of time. If you really want to, make up your own mind.

For the sake of fairness: I thought the part from 47:41 - 51:54 was quite good.

In the meantime, if you only want to see the skiing action, you can watch the athlete edits from Hoji, Markus Eder, Mark Abma, and Tanner Rainville individually.

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