Review 432: Downsizing

Downsizing has an intriguing premise, an excellent cast, a talented director behind the camera, looks great and has some funny moments but the end result is surprisingly underwhelming.

In the near future, Paul Safranek (Matt Damon) & his wife Audrey (Kristen Wiig) are a married couple living in Omaha with financial issues. After a chance meeting with some old friends, Dave (Jason Sudeikis) and Carol Johnson (Maribeth Monroe) at a collage reunion, they decide to undertake the newly-invented, irreversible process known as "Downsizing" a process that involves shrinking humans to a height of 5 inches 15 years in the making and start a new life in the the experimental community of Leisureland.
While Paul goes with the process without mishap, Audrey backs out at the last minute leading to a divorce between the two. Paul is then forced to readjust to his new surroundings and lifestyle as well as reassess his life and choices when he meets Dusan Mirkovic (Christoph Waltz) an ageing party boy from the Serbs and Ngoc Lan Tran (Hong Chau) a forcibly shrunk Vietnamese activist.

The plot actually has an intriguing premise: It's about overpopulation, economy and the idea that if you live small, you can live big.
But none of these ideas are explored to their full potential rather frustratingly and the film just doesn’t seem to have the gumption to properly explore those ideas and the impact they have on the people in Leisureland. As a result, Leisureland becomes indistinguishable from the real world.

First you don't know where it's going and then you don't care where it's going because the film doesn't seem to know where it's going and has so many ideas on its mind.
After Paul gets shrunk and his wife bails on him, the film just meanders around with no clear sense of direction.

Finally the film sort of ends rather abruptly as if Writer/Director Alexander Payne and his team were saying "Ok, we've taken up enough of your time, you can go home now." There's no sense of resolution or closure regarding what happens in the film or the characters arcs.

Alexander Payne's direction is surprisingly unremarkable, the production design (creating Leisureland is extremely well detailed and imaginative), the scenery is breathtaking, the special effects are magnificent, the costumes are fine, the score by Rolfe Kent is just ok - nothing special.

The acting is extraordinarily unremarkable considering the talent involved. Matt Damon is...  Well it's not necessarily his fault, it's just that the script doesn't give him anything to work.
There isn't anything that's intrinsically likeable or interesting about him. He’s supposedly a mild mannered therapist whose clearly struggling to make ends meet and pay his bills but that foundation is never really built upon.
They make him an Occupational therapist for no discernible reason. You'd think that would give an enormously talented actor like Damon loads of meat to chew on but that never really comes into play in the films narrative: It adds nothing to the plot. I suppose that Paul is supposed to be our audience surrogate and that we are supposed to be learning about Leisureland along with him but there's nothing for us to latch onto. Nothing to make us want to go on this long and illustrious journey with him.

Kristen Wiig is criminally underused/wasted as Paul's wife, Audrey. She is never seen or mentioned again after the divorce is finalised. Her reason for not going along with their plan to be downsized is also never explore further than a plot device to further Paul’s journey or lack therefore.

Christoph Waltz is kind of one-note as Dusan Mirkovic, an ageing playboy who Paul connects. Nonetheless he does provide some genuinely funny moments throughout the film that keep it afloat.

Udo Kier

Hong Chau

Jason Sudeikis, Maribeth Monroe, Margo Martindale, Neil Patrick Harris & Laura Dern round out the cast in what amount to little more than cameo appearances. They pop up when the script demands them, then the movie seems to suffer from a strange case of amnesia and forgets all about them just like with Wiig.

3/5.

The Anonymous Critic.