Downsizing

Downsizing is a high concept project from Alexander Payne, who is normally known for dry comedy/dramas like Nebraska, Sideways, About Schmidt and The Descendants.  He now turns this approach to a science fiction scenario.  In order to combat climate change and other ecological ills, scientists have developed a way to shrink people to about five inches tall.  This way they use fewer resources and take up much less room.  But it is a one way process and it is difficult for shrunken people to interact with the full size.  People who downsize must sever ties with friends and family.  The advantage is that whatever money you have goes a lot further.  Full-size people with moderate incomes become fabulously wealthy when they downsize.

Paul Safranek, played by Matt Damon, is intrigued by the process.   His wife Audrey, played by Kristen Wiig, is less enthusiastic but willing to go along with it because she is unhappy with their cash-strapped middle class existence.  Unable to overcome her doubts, she backs out at the last minute.  After the divorce Paul is left without the means to afford the rich lifestyle he thought he was signing up for.  He has to get a job and move into an apartment, selling the palatial house they’d bought.

He does make a few friends, though.  His upstairs neighbor, Dusan Mirkovic, played by Christoph Waltz, is a bit of a huckster, dealing in ethically questionable items.  Despite that Dusan is a good guy who genuinely likes Paul and tries to help him.  Dusan’s cleaning lady is Ngoc Lan Tran, played by Hong Chou, a Vietnamese dissident, who was shrunk against her will.  Paul, a trained occupational therapist in the full-sized world, tries to help Ngoc who has an old and badly adjusted prosthetic leg.  While trying to fix it, he breaks it and agrees to help her get her work done until a replacement arrives.

Damon turns in a good performance as a man with middle class sensibilities, who is also a little naïve.  He’s likeable enough even if you want to scream at him for making stupid decisions.  He means well.

Hong Chau’s performance has been criticized for being stereotypical.  Ngoc is bossy and a little prickly and I can see why people would think that the performance is one dimensional.  But I thought she found layers and vulnerabilities in the character.

The best thing and the worst thing about the movie is the thought that went into the concept of shrinking people.  I won’t say that they thought of everything but they thought of enough interesting aspects to make it seem like a realistic extrapolation.  They establish a believable timeline for the development of the technology.  It takes years from the original breakthrough to full implementation.  Little details are included.  People with artificial hips aren’t eligible because the process only shrinks living matter.  The entire body must me shaved and any fillings removed.  The effects were good and a lot of the visuals did a good job of portraying the odd world of the downsized.

All that information, while cool, also bogs down the plot after a while.  I could have done with less of it.  There’s no reason that this film needed to go longer than two hours.

So in the end I think you can probably wait for the DVD to see this one.