An occupational therapist (Matt Damon) who has taken care of his sickly mother and lived in the same house his whole life decides to undergo a new revolutionary procedure with his depressed wife (Kristen Wiig), have himself shrunk to the size of a french fry and live in opulence in a mini commune. Downsizing is a minor work and pointless satire, a real disappointment from Alexander Payne who, collaborating with his longtime work partner Jim Taylor, sadly seems to be phoning it in, with a whiny Damon, an incredibly irritating Hong Chau as the love interest, and feeble attempts at comedy and parody.

* out of ****

Without access to a vehicle or assistance from his nagging wife (June Squibb), a confused, alcoholic, and irascible old man (Bruce Dern) is absolutely dead set on walking from Billings, Montana to Lincoln, Nebraska (a distance of only about 900 miles) in order to collect his million dollar lottery winnings, you know the kind of mailing sent by some promotional company in order to procure magazine subscriptions. Unwilling to listen to reason, his youngest son (Will Forte) decides to humor the old man and take him along for the ride, a bonding excursion which features a trip into the past when they decide to detour in their hometown of Hawthorne. After trips to both Hawaii and California wine country in his last two films, Alexander Payne brings it all back to his home state with another tender and matter of fact look at American life. Here, from a reflective, and alternately hilarious and glum screenplay from Bob Nelson, he uses his sardonic approach to glimpse into a wounded yet jointed family in a part of the country he seems to know like the back of his hand. After over 50 years in the business and nearly 150 film roles, Bruce Dern finally receives the role of a lifetime, generating empathy in nearly every frame from a camera that studies his expressive and bedraggled face. He receives wonderful support from SNL alumnus Forte as his sad sack son, Squibb as his equally dyspeptic wife, and a peppered, impeccably chosen supporting cast. The film is further lifted by Phedon Papamichael's gorgeous black and white cinematography, especially during transitory landscape sequences which are given their own flavor by a beautifully somnolent soundtrack.

Ruth turns her latest trick and is tossed out in the cold, wrongly thinking she had a place to stay for the night. After bashing the john's headlights in, she heads to her brother's house (who is fathering one of her many children) to borrow, buys a can of paint, and proceeds to huff it in the alley on the side of of the store. She gets picked up for the umpteenth time and while in jail discovers she is pregnant once again. Behind close doors, the judge in the case offers leniency if she will terminate the pregnancy, and word of this gets out. Soon, Ruth will be the center of attention in the abortion debate, first on the side of the Pro-Lifers, then on the side of Choice. By drawing his heroine as an ignorant wench with no political thought whatsoever, Alexander Payne uses her as a device by which to lampoon the abortion issue on both sides, as well as bipartisan politics in general. "Citizen Ruth" was director Payne's and cowriter Jim Taylor's debut film, and it contains many of the elements that made their subsequent so warm, humanistic, realistic, and honest. This is a stinging satire that does its best to be objective, although I think they are drawn more towards one side than most reviewers would leave you to believe. The problem with the film however lies in Laura Dern's performance. Although she gives it a gutsy go, she is way to manic and loathsome for us to draw even the slightest sympathy for. "Citizen Ruth" is alternately funny and hard going, and is best viewed as a preview of the great work Payne and Taylor would compose down the line.

Mr. McAllister is a dedicated history teacher at George Washington Carver High School, with a loving wife at home and friends he enjoys. All of this is disrupted when Tracy Flick, an ultra-perky dynamo, decides to run unopposed for class president, and Mr. M decides to meddle (as Tracey would put it). "Election" is the super sly film that put Alexander Payne, along with cowriter Jim Taylor, on the map as an auteur of quirky and deeply affecting human comedies. Working from Tom Perotta novel, "Election" is a wonderfully observant and insightful, characteristics that have been true of all of Payne's work since. The movie also represents the breakout performance Reese Witherspoon who manages to fashion a character so contemptible, and then manages to draw sympathy for her in the film's denouement. Matthew Broderick delivers one of his best performances as a teacher who at first is trying to put on his best face, and soon is trying to keep everything together. Chris Klein is excellent as well playing a good natured jock whom Broderick's character has plans for. "Election" is a film about High School, geared towards adults that is wickedly cynical, warm, and perceptive.

An successor in a royal Hawaiian lineage and trustee to a mass and beautiful landscape is about to broker a major deal when his wife is critically injured in a boating accident. Now responsible for his two troubled daughters, he tries to make peace with this personal tragedy while navigating the astonishing landscape of the Aloha State. "The Descendants" is the latest offering from Alexander Payne, one of our most brilliant auteurs ("Election", "About Schmidt", "Sideways"), who again captures an impeccably realized story about a man on the verge of emotional collapse. In one of his most nuanced and finely tuned performances, George Clooney plays a man undergoing a well of emotions during the course of an often brutal journey of personal discovery. In support, Shailene Woodley is excellent as his eldest daughter, whose  growth throughout the film is equally remarkable. Robert Forster is perfectly realized as well in a small but powerful role as Clooney's father-in-law. One of the elements that makes Payne's films so effective and touching is that we never quite know where the story is going to take us, and while he takes us to unexpected and vivid places, the characters we journey with and meet along the way seem so vibrant and true.