Downsizing is what happens when you have what you think is a killer script and instead of fast-tracking it you tweak it and tinker and move things around, forget about it, dig it back up, tinker some more and repeat for about a decade. I'm still processing what I had to put up with in order to finish this drab, sanctimonious little bait-and-switch but I tell you what, if the goal was to leave audiences depressed, angry and bewildered, good f**king job!
Downsizing starts on the heels of a startling, earth-shattering discovery. Scientists in Norway have developed a method of miniaturization that can shrink most organic matter including humans to 0.6% normal size thereby creating a safe, practical solution to overpopulation. Seeing the process of downsizing as a way to start over, Paul Safranek (Damon) and wife Audrey (Wiig) decide to retire in a Sunbelt mini-community where they can theoretically live like kings.
As you can imagine things don't entirely go according to plan but don't expect the highfalutin high-concept of the film go anywhere beyond the first thirty minutes of the movie. For Downsizing isn't about ambitious sci-fi technology or for that matter economic, social or political satire. No this is a movie all about how to find piece-of-mind and self-identity. And what better way to portray that than having a thankless, rudderless, middle class white dude played by Matt Damon mulling about for two hours and fifteen minutes?
This movie is the perfect storm of simpering self-righteousness, wafer-thin plodding and meandering false bravado. It takes the usual Alexander Payne, man-on-the-edge setup, arms it with an environmental message and a bullhorn and proceeds to rebuke its audience for being alive. It thinks it's being clever; it's really just taking the banal and making it insufferable.
The unfortunate and uncomfortable part of that banality is it comes at the expense of one decent and true performance on the part of Hong Chau. The demure Thai actress plays a miniaturized Vietnamese refugee who more-or-less becomes the angel on Damon's shoulders. There was much controversy in early screenings concerning Chau's accent but given that the choice was a well thought out and actually quite touching decision on the part of Chau, it becomes clear that the problem isn't really her. It's everything around her that turns the vibrant Ngoc Lan Tran into a cartoon character; the best comparison I can come up with is it's like putting a Jane Austen character into a Todd Phillips directed sex comedy - you'd notice, and you know it wouldn't work.
Had we started everything from the point of view of Ngoc Lan Tran or at the very least shifted the story to the 40 minute mark...it'd still suck but stop just short of being a catastrophic misfire on par with Exit to Eden (1994). But instead we're stuck with a milquetoast, well-meaning but complacent "everyman" whose fatal flaw can be corrected thanks to a manic pixie dream exile and his vaguely European upstairs neighbor (Waltz).
All this is punctuated by some of the most flaccid, cloying and obvious moments of social satire ever put on film. Half the time I was convinced the script was written not by director Alexander Payne but a precocious ten-year-old who suddenly found out how the other half lives. The other half of the time, I sat with my arms folded bracing for the next sermon on humanity's inability to merry selfishness with virtue - the film seeming to smile in a smug grimace every god***n time. There's even a particularly tasteless and preachy thread taking place on the wrong side of tiny town that was one Sarah McLachlan song away from making me want to strangle a pelican.
And of course I can't end without restating the sad fact that the high-concept; people deciding to be mini, is incidental to the plot. You take that aspect of the film away and almost nothing would change. Perhaps that's part of the point thematically, but those looking for a grown-up version of Honey I Shrunk the Kids (1989), i.e. most everyone who saw the trailer, will instead need to get themselves a tank of sea monkeys.
Downsizing is the most disappointing movies of the year by far. It writes a check it has no intention of honoring then chastises its audience for falling for the ruse. I long for the days when Alexander Payne's misanthropic worldview informed his films with wit, irony and a sense of dour humanism. For now when we need it most, Payne has instead retreated into his barrel and left this tiny little turd on our doorstep.
Downsizing starts on the heels of a startling, earth-shattering discovery. Scientists in Norway have developed a method of miniaturization that can shrink most organic matter including humans to 0.6% normal size thereby creating a safe, practical solution to overpopulation. Seeing the process of downsizing as a way to start over, Paul Safranek (Damon) and wife Audrey (Wiig) decide to retire in a Sunbelt mini-community where they can theoretically live like kings.
As you can imagine things don't entirely go according to plan but don't expect the highfalutin high-concept of the film go anywhere beyond the first thirty minutes of the movie. For Downsizing isn't about ambitious sci-fi technology or for that matter economic, social or political satire. No this is a movie all about how to find piece-of-mind and self-identity. And what better way to portray that than having a thankless, rudderless, middle class white dude played by Matt Damon mulling about for two hours and fifteen minutes?
This movie is the perfect storm of simpering self-righteousness, wafer-thin plodding and meandering false bravado. It takes the usual Alexander Payne, man-on-the-edge setup, arms it with an environmental message and a bullhorn and proceeds to rebuke its audience for being alive. It thinks it's being clever; it's really just taking the banal and making it insufferable.
The unfortunate and uncomfortable part of that banality is it comes at the expense of one decent and true performance on the part of Hong Chau. The demure Thai actress plays a miniaturized Vietnamese refugee who more-or-less becomes the angel on Damon's shoulders. There was much controversy in early screenings concerning Chau's accent but given that the choice was a well thought out and actually quite touching decision on the part of Chau, it becomes clear that the problem isn't really her. It's everything around her that turns the vibrant Ngoc Lan Tran into a cartoon character; the best comparison I can come up with is it's like putting a Jane Austen character into a Todd Phillips directed sex comedy - you'd notice, and you know it wouldn't work.
Had we started everything from the point of view of Ngoc Lan Tran or at the very least shifted the story to the 40 minute mark...it'd still suck but stop just short of being a catastrophic misfire on par with Exit to Eden (1994). But instead we're stuck with a milquetoast, well-meaning but complacent "everyman" whose fatal flaw can be corrected thanks to a manic pixie dream exile and his vaguely European upstairs neighbor (Waltz).
All this is punctuated by some of the most flaccid, cloying and obvious moments of social satire ever put on film. Half the time I was convinced the script was written not by director Alexander Payne but a precocious ten-year-old who suddenly found out how the other half lives. The other half of the time, I sat with my arms folded bracing for the next sermon on humanity's inability to merry selfishness with virtue - the film seeming to smile in a smug grimace every god***n time. There's even a particularly tasteless and preachy thread taking place on the wrong side of tiny town that was one Sarah McLachlan song away from making me want to strangle a pelican.
And of course I can't end without restating the sad fact that the high-concept; people deciding to be mini, is incidental to the plot. You take that aspect of the film away and almost nothing would change. Perhaps that's part of the point thematically, but those looking for a grown-up version of Honey I Shrunk the Kids (1989), i.e. most everyone who saw the trailer, will instead need to get themselves a tank of sea monkeys.
Downsizing is the most disappointing movies of the year by far. It writes a check it has no intention of honoring then chastises its audience for falling for the ruse. I long for the days when Alexander Payne's misanthropic worldview informed his films with wit, irony and a sense of dour humanism. For now when we need it most, Payne has instead retreated into his barrel and left this tiny little turd on our doorstep.