Downsizing

A grey movie with a great idea (shrinking people) that actually ended up being something secondary. You can tell a story like that even in a normally large setting. It will be colorless the same way. A classic about how an internally dissatisfied man comes to happiness, all it takes is for his wife to kick him in the ass and for him to find an Eastern European friend... 50%. (28/04/2020)

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)

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)

In recent years, Alexander Payne has been filming the same story about aging white men who discover rather too late that they have wasted most of their lives and so they set out to find something that gives their empty lives meaning. Set in a world where people can be shrunk down to roughly six inches in order to improve their lives and save the planet, Downsizing is basically no exception; it just has a more ambitious scope and, in addition to the crisis of the individual, attempts to also address the crisis of western society, or rather the whole world, to which Payne adapted the genre and narrative structure. ___ At the beginning, the film switches from an individual point of view to a global perspective and subsequently applies the same technique to Damon’s physiotherapist character, who finds the solution to his problems by becoming more interested in the world around him so that he comes to the conclusion that it is necessary to start with smaller goals (i.e. local, not global). The core of the film comprising a bitter comedy that questions faith in the American dream and never-ending American prosperity is supplemented with a sci-fi satire and (melo)drama with a relatively explicit political-environmental message. Sometimes I wasn’t sure if a scene was supposed to come across as sardonic (because a character says something terribly kitschy and literal and Christoph Waltz smiles like a simpleton) or touching. ___ A bigger problem is the fact that Payne and co-writer Jim Taylor are at times unable to decide whether they are more interested in the characters or in the downsized world they invented for them and whose laws we are now discovering together with the protagonists. The whole idea of downsizing seemed to me like a gimmick serving more or less only as scathing commentary on what people are willing to go through to improve their social status. At its core, this is a variation of a well-known Payne story that could happen even in the real world. I see the sci-fi level mainly as a way to facilitate the work and to more quickly confront the characters with the dilemmas that the screenplay is intended to address. __ The resulting hybrid holds together primarily thanks to Matt Damon, who is just as convincing as a paunchy forty-something with mild depression as he is as secret agent with lethal skills. The genre transformations that the film undergoes partly reflect the development of his character, toward whom Payne is far too indulgent in comparison with his earlier films (often at the expense of stereotyped female characters). ___ In many respects, Downsizing is a rather problematic film and definitely not perfect, but it clearly made an impression on me. And perhaps the real reason I feel the need to defend it instead of maligning it is the laughing Christoph Waltz as a Serbian smuggler named Dusan Mirkovic, who is ably supported Udo Kier. 75% (07/01/2018)

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)