Downsizing Is Small On Narrative Ambitions Or Anything Really Remarkable To Speak Of

There's not much going on here in Downsizing. Despite labeling itself a "social satire", there's not much in the way of actual satire transpiring in Alexander Payne's latest motion picture. There isn't all that much comedy either and what does show up to generate yuks is just awkward and forced (the majority of the jokes received, from the audience at my screening, the kind of forced light chuckles a parent might use to laugh at a young child's incoherent knock-knock joke). So what is there in this movie, what exactly is going on in Downsizing? There's...a chance for Christoph Waltz to play someone that isn't a bad guy in an American movie? That's good! OK, that's one thing that happens in Downsizing...


The plot of Downsizing revolves around the phenomenon of the process of being able to shrink a person down to microscopic levels being discovered and then applied on humans in an effort to deter the nasty effects overpopulation is having on the planet at large. From that concept alone, the mind reels at the storytelling possibilities offered up by such an idea, you could go to so many places with it, explore so many themes and unique visuals! Instead, we're stuck following around sad-sack Paul Safranek (Matt Damon) around as he muddles around his boring life before deciding to go ahead and shrink down to minuscule size, only to be dealt with a personal blow once he actually goes through with the process and finds himself once again lost and morose.

The first half of the story of Downsizing is all about exposition and exploring how this world functions. Science-fiction tinged stories have found plenty of ways to convey world-building information in entertaining manners (remember the schoolchildren scene in Snowpiercer?), but for Downsizing, endless explanations about how this or that aspect of the shrinking world and process just become a snooze before too long. The fact that the characters all talk in the same easygoing, profanity-free vernacular just makes things all the more tedious. It would make sense for the salespeople to talk like this but why do none of the explicitly everyday individuals like Paul and his buddies talk like actual people or at least talk in an entertaining or interestingly unorthodox manner?

Then, once Paul gets small (Paul Gets Small, could that have been an alternate title at one point?), the second half of the story begins and it is here that Downsizing truly finds the definition of the word meandering. The script constantly seems to be searching for something, anything at all, to center it's plot on and anytime it seems like it might have found an issue it could orient the rest of its story on (most notably wealth inequality or racial inequality), it just passes any potentially rich avenue of storytelling by. A lack of focus means even the prospect of the end of the world itself just comes & goes without having much impact on things. Plus, the shrinking aspect of Paul's journey barely factors into the second half of the story at all, which makes the heavy amount of time spent on explaining how this shrinking world operates in the first half of the story feel like a big waste of time.

At least the second half of the story introduces Ngoc Lan Tran (Hong Chau) into the story, a character whose background of being an activist who is shrunk against her will and then shipped to America in a hazardous trip that ends up costing her her leg seems infinitely more fascinating than the drudgery Matt Damon's lead character is going through. Of course, such a character is around to merely be a love interest (and occasional source of mockery that the film can wring for humor) for Paul, but at least Hong Chau's performance is the only one in the film that has energy or humanity to it. Her deadpan line deliveries (like her early offhand mention of a close friend having recently died) are especially entertaining and the fact that Chau has such vibrant personality in her performance makes her feel like the only actual human being interacting with a bunch of rigid automatons.

One good performance can't salvage a movie though, especially one that's as lackadaisical as Downsizing. With a script this lazy to work with, it's no wonder the big-name actors scattered throughout the film seem to be just phoning it in, most of all Matt Damon whose about as nondescript here as I've ever seen him while Christoph Waltz constantly seems like he's only mere minutes away from nodding off. A bunch of celebrity cameos peppered throughout the runtime by the likes of Laura Dern and Neil Patrick Harris made me wish they'd stick around longer and possibly inject some energy into this thing. All of these actors are playing incredibly tiny characters, but amazingly, the virtues of Downsizing, the film they're appearing in, is even shorter!