Downsizing

The easiest part to get of writer/director Alexander Payne's sci-fi comedy, Downsizing, is the allegory of shrinking ourselves and our possessions to miniature to save the planet from our excess yet become miniature plutocrats in the process. The more challenging part is to understand how he can pack climate change and economic decay also into his themes.

Paul (Matt Damon), an occupational therapist who at best is just a nice guy, and his ambitious wife, Audrey (Kristen Wiig), decide to have a richer life by downsizing, but contrary to our conventional use of that term. To shrink means to have a bigger miniature mansion, the kind he couldn't afford in a regular size that his shrinking paycheck keeps him from. Of course, in his decision to help out the planet, he is really helping to mitigate his envy of his richer friends in their McMansions.

Payne and co-writer Jim Taylor deftly move the Twilight-Zone story into a melodrama that stresses the humanity of a man who forsakes family and friends for a seemingly higher purpose such as saving the environment. However, it still comes back to greed.

At least until Paul experiences caring for those less fortunate than he, for those shrunk but still with relatively nothing, viz., the poor, the immigrant, and the sick to name a few disadvantaged souls living in a ghetto-tenement world far from the eyes of the advantaged. Once Paul witnesses real poverty he can never turn back to his truly shrunken life of excess and worthlessness.

Where Payne veers from the staples of his drama is bringing in an apocalyptic climate change, a danger not even appearing earlier. More than that misplaced motif is that he has nicely set up already the humanity that will save Paul, who must choose between survival and being together for however long with the ones he truly loves.

Downsizing is rare, a comedy in sci-fi mode with a toolbox of social concerns. It's a child of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids with a Twilight Zone spirit, and it's a pleasant holiday diversion.

After seeing the trailer and prior to that not knowing a thing about this movie, I took the wife last night. I loved the concept and saw many funny people (Kristin Wiig, Jason Sudeikis, among others) in the trailer and thought it would be fun. While I wouldn't say it was a bad movie, it was SLOW and really didn't provide many laughs. Seemed to be another movie trying to push down an agenda regarding global warming and conservation rather than being a fun escape for 2 hours. If you like the actors, you might like the movie, but if you're expecting something with a comedic slant, I'd say you'll be disappointed.

From Sideways, to Nebraska, to The Descendants, and even Paris, je t'aime, I've pretty much loved everything that I've seen from director Alexander Payne, making Downsizing one of my most anticipated films of 2017. Having heard so little about the film aside from its concept, I went into the screening fairly cold. Sadly, the film doesn't have a whole lot more to offer than its brilliant concept and exceptional first act. I must admit that I left feeling disappointed, thinking they could've made this a better movie in many ways. When a film has so much promise and doesn't exactly deliver on much of it, I feel as though many people would be let down by that. Here is why I believe everyone should see Downsizing, despite it being slightly too mediocre as a final product.

In this dramedy, which also in part a social satire of its own genre, Downsizing follows a couple who believes their lives would be better if they were to shrink themselves and be transferred to a new world called Leisureland. This place exists to conserve the Earth and save the environment, by these shrunken people needed much fewer resources. With multiple meanings to the title, this is a concept that sounds incredible on paper but doesn't exactly translate into that great of a movie. Throughout the first act, I found myself immersed in this world and couldn't wait to be taken on its journey, but I soon found myself losing interest when political and religious elements began to take over. This is a movie that could've done so much more with its premise.

Without giving anything away, there are many characters that come in and out of this film in a heartbeat, pretty much leaving them in the dust, when in reality they were actually interesting and added a layer to the overall story. It felt as though Alexander Payne wanted to focus so much on the idea of the Downsizing concept, that he sidelined quite a few characters along the way. His films have always been about characters, and while Paul (Matt Damon) and Ngoc (Hong Chau) share some great chemistry throughout this film, it's hard not to wish that all of the characters throughout the first act were present throughout the entire film. This was a very curious issue I had while watching and definitely upon reflection.

As soon as you're brought into this other world that has been built for those who shrunk themselves over the years, you will find yourself kind of transfixed at how interesting the visuals are and how well the comedic aspects come into play, but what you don't expect is for the film to take a dramatic turn and really have you thinking hard about the world we live in and whether or not certain lines of dialogue are true about society in general. This is an eye-opening film in that regard and the third act is incredibly ambitious, but I just don't think it really sticks the landing that it strives to achieve.

In the end, this is one of the most original ideas I can recall in recent memory, but an idea doesn't make a film great. It's the film itself that needs to win you over as a whole, and Downsizing just didn't do that for me. On many accounts, this is a very impressive movie from a technical standpoint and it takes risks that I didn't expect it to, but the risks it takes will only work for a few audiences members that can relate to it.

This is a movie that promises a lot and tries to deliver on all of those promises, while also shoving in side plots that make this film too emotionally complex to really be invested in the satirical aspects by the end. I wish this film went through a few more rewrites, because there is a satirical masterpiece of a movie in here somewhere, but it's just not the product that you'll be seeing in theatres soon. Downsizing is worth your time in terms of originality, but I wouldn't get your hopes up on it being a favorite of yours.

I don't really understand why it has such low ratings. And I was truly puzzled by that during the first half of the movie, as I thought the premise was original and interesting, the plot was engaging, and the actors were all great; I was loving it. But then it starts declining in quality and pace, and towards the end it feels like the story doesn't quite know what it wants to be or convey. That's a real shame because it could have been truly great from beginning to end. So it would be a bit difficult for me to recommend unless you're just a fan of any of the actors as they are giving they're best here.

When Norwegian scientists develop a means to shrink living things down to miniature size, with the average human standing only 5 inches tall, the world sees it as great new opportunity. "Downsized" people use less resources, take up less space, and have a smaller impact on the environment. As an added bonus, their "full-size" bank accounts translate to vastly more wealth at smaller size, since less material is needed to build dream mansions or create fabulous jewelry. Within a decade, "downsized" towns are springing up around the world, and middle-class Nebraskans Paul (Matt Damon) and Audrey (Kristen Wiig) make the decision to join the "little people". However, when complications ensue, Paul finds his worldview shattered, and he's left looking for new direction in his life.

Director Alexander Payne (Election, Sideways, The Descendants, Nebraska) has a knack for character and the human condition. This movie, easily his biggest budgeted effort due to the special effects involved, loses a little of that thanks to the film's ambitions and the overreaching scope of the story. Payne seems to making some points about the lengths people will go to in hopes of achieving the upper class dream of many Americans, with the big house and country club aesthetics. Payne also spends time on the danger of climate change, and the last section of the film takes this to apocalyptic levels. Whether he's exaggerating for effect, comic or otherwise, he doesn't make clear, but it's also possible that he's being sincere in his fears. Damon serves his purpose well, as he's called on mainly to be a blank slate, a rather empty man looking for meaning in the world.

The stand-out performances are from Christopher Waltz as Damon's obnoxious neighbor, and especially Hong Chau as a one-legged Vietnamese former political dissident turned janitorial worker. She's phenomenal, and should have nabbed a supporting Oscar nomination. The movie was a flop with both critics and the box office, but I liked it, and continue to look forward to Payne's work.