Downsizing

There’s no denying Downsizing has many excellent filmmaking ideas and processes that make it an interesting and original movie even today. The main narrative corridor initially is the premise of downsizing people in order to save a moribund Mother Earth, and it dramatises mainly the radical process of physical shrinkage, while the attention is led towards the characters’ getting used to the world of the future, which is described as an incredible adventure to the people of the “past”. After the anticipated key twist, however, Payne defies all expectations and presents an alternative world that essentially duplicates the real one in a small scale, including its social ills, and instead of the adventure and the discovery of the unknown, he focuses on expanding the knowledge of the protagonist, who becomes the dominant of the narration. The differences between the big and the small world gradually fade and blend in the closing part in Norway, which also brings in the idea of that huge, poverty-stricken world represented by the earnest and human Vietnamese girl, while the raunchy playboy Dušan represents that tiny corner of the world where everything is plentiful. Downsizing is definitely a peculiar statement about the state of modern society, though it’s hard to pinpoint in what sense it is actually special: as futuristic sci-fi with elements of social tragicomedy, or as a funny drama about people that portrays big and small social or economical differences with a subtle form of science fiction. Though I think the ending is intellectually shabby and that the potential duality of the fictional world is drowning in indecisiveness about how to best capture said duality (whether through the characters or the environment), I had pretty good fun despite the excessive runtime. I’m adding the fourth star also for the fact that, as it’s usual here, this is a very underrated movie. 70% (29/10/2018)

A great premise that initially made me feel as if I was watching something by the director Frank Oz. It is appropriately off-the-wall, crazy, and features a number of great actors. I didn’t actually laugh, but it was oozing with great ideas, which could be expected from a movie like this. With time the story started to evolve (especially in Norway) into a pretty strange something, which is trying to give its point global importance and educate us about the topic of the current population of the Earth. Over time I started to question what the creators actually wanted to convey, and I ended up questioning what they were actually trying to achieve. It stopped making sense to me. And if it wasn’t for the final “earthquake” I wouldn’t even laugh. In the end, I was glad that I ended up at three stars. It could have been worse, even though I didn’t think so in the beginning. (02/10/2018)

It is almost a sin to turn such an interesting material into a film so uninteresting, boring and without creativity. Matt Damon is going downhill, his quite possibly last good film was The Martian, he has disappointed twice this year and his upcoming film Oceans' 8 doesn't have much of a future. The first hour of the film was still passable and Christoph Waltz gave it quite an energy, but after the arrival of the annoying Vietnamese woman who got on my nerves like no character in a long time, the film degraded two notches and also absolutely deviated from the original concept – I felt I was watching a different film. 40%. (11/02/2018)

I had a little trouble with Alexander Payne every time. The main characters of his stories are always looking for the meaning of life, their salvation, or a new goal, and usually go in endless circles while I often shake my head at how their situation somehow resolves itself. Downsizing is a shock to me for that reason. The main character actively tries to solve his unhappy situation each time, helps others (often by accident or unwillingly), and is constantly moving forward in peculiar directions. In addition, the topics that Payne and Jim Taylor stitched together are such a mess that I could hardly keep up with the necessary moods and settings. Ecology, marriage crises, migration, overpopulation, sci-fi tangents, harmony with nature, the wealthy, loneliness, dead ends of the future. And each time with an abundance of details. This story has everything, and its conflicting reception clearly shows that maybe there is too much for the audience. However, thanks to the presence of about ten familiar favorite faces in the smallest roles, I consider myself one of the most satisfied. (11/01/2018)

It's just so tricky to do these movies as pure social metaphor, because it’s terribly appealing to fall into simple, totally bitter theses. At least Lanthimos regularly churns these types of movies out with absurdity, comfortless visuals, and regular shrapnel erupting out of otherwise slow pacing and postmodern form. Instead, Payne has no distinctive formal method, and so he just kind of opportunistically flails around in it, at one point wanting to move us on a humane level or get us to empathize with his characters, then switching them whenever it suits him into simple caricatures that manage to redefine themselves abruptly in the span of a single sentence. Thus, in Downsizing, we find scenes straight out of South Park (the explosion of the vault entrance, Matt Damon suddenly drumming in hippie rags at sunset), scenes that look like the result of a movie fan party (a trashed Matt Damon partying with Christopher Waltz and Udo Kier), and scenes that are long enough and sensitive enough that someone might actually realize they're supposed to be sobbing and shaking their head with a wistful grin at the power of love, even in the most unlikely moments. And my nerve centers in my brain are simply no longer flexible enough to switch between all these modes so quickly and randomly. (16/01/2018)