When boffins crack the mystery of how to shrink organic matter to tiny proportions, any average Joe with an average life in a pokey apartment suddenly finds they can trade up to dream homes in idyllic, crime-free communities – as long as they’re willing to shrink down to a few inches in size. Soon, thousands are taking the plunge and benefiting from the extreme economies of scale on offer in places like Leisureland, the premium colony of choice for wannabe shrinky-dinks like Paul and Audrey Safranek (Matt Damon and Kristin Wigg). But when Paul awakes after his size reduction surgery to find his wife has bottled it and stayed large, his dream is suddenly derailed.
As is the movie. Downsizing’s first act fizzes with smartly knowing jokes at the expense of the set-up, but once Wiig jumps ship, things take a major nosedive. Out go most of the laughs, out goes Matt Damon in Homer Simpson mode, out goes the engaging conceptual exploration of miniaturisation. Bye-bye to all that. Say hello to sincere everyman Matt Damon learning ‘who he really is’ and finding true love along the way as he goes about providing medical assistance to a scatty cleaning lady (Hong Chau) and her sad-faced compadres in Leisureland’s equivalent of Rio’s Favela slums. How’s that for an ambience adjustment?
Alexander Payne has rarely put a foot wrong in his directorial career, but this tonal cut n’ shut lands him waist-deep in the brown stuff. The Truman Show-esque potential of Leisureland as a concept is nicely foreshadowed, only to be tossed away in favour of heavy-handed social messaging before Payne gets really bored and decamps his entire cast on a laugh-free hippy excursion to Norway to visit a colony of little people who are planning to move underground because the world is about to end, apparently. Did we mention Downsizing also wants to be an end-of-the-world movie? If you make it to that point (it’s 2 hours and 15 minutes long, so we’re making no assumptions), feel free to invoke the Trades Descriptions Act 1968 and ask for a refund because the film doesn’t even include the money-shot from the trailer involving a giant vodka bottle. We were rather looking forward to that bit.
If there’s any compensation for the curdled eggnog of a plot, you’ll find it in the performances. Damon hangs in there, Chau is a bundle of potty-mouthed energy who just about makes the bolted-on romance fly, Christoph Waltz as Damon’s enigmatic neighbour adds trademark Waltzisms and Udo Kier smoulders with that aloof disdain only he can do, despite having no narrative function whatsoever.
The really sobering economy of scale about this overlong auteur indulgence is that it cost $68 million to make and none of that money went on a script doctor. Talking of which, if you are accidentally exposed to Downsizing, we prescribe The Incredible Shrinking Man and a large bottle of vodka. Repeat as necessary.
DOWNSIZING / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: ALEXANDER PAYNE / SCREENPLAY: ALEXANDER PAYNE, JIM TAYLOR / STARRING: MATT DAMON, CHRISTOPH WALTZ, HONG CHAU, KRISTEN WIIG, ROLF LASSGÅRD, UDO KIER / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
Expecte Rating: 8 out of 10
