It’s astonishing how a movie that has the accomplished Alexander Payne as its director, a stacked cast with Matt Damon (whom Hollywood spent more than $900 billion saving on the big screen), a decent budget of $68 million, and a story filled with promise can go so catastrophically wrong. Of course, we’re talking about “Downsizing,” a “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids”-esque sci-fi satire that opened in 2017 to mixed reviews.
Despite the presence of Christoph Waltz, Kristen Wiig, Hong Chau, Jason Sudeikis, and Phil Reeves, “Downsizing” ended up being a critical and commercial disappointment. Unable to even break even, the film made only $55 million worldwide at the box office in addition to being bashed by most critics (the feature currently stands at 47% on Rotten Tomatoes).
The premise of “Downsizing” had potential for something strange and distinctive. The film concerns a scientific breakthrough known as “downsizing,” which shrinks organic material, including humans. It’s sold as a high-minded revolution to avoid overpopulation, reduce waste, and offer a completely new way of life to those who are brave enough to make such a change — since once you go through with it and become “small,” there’s no way to reverse the effect. The plot follows Paul (Damon) and his wife Audrey (Wiig), as a couple looking to be made small for various reasons. But once Paul finds himself on the other side, he soon learns that Audrey backed out at the last minute, and his plans immediately go off the rails — along with the rest of the movie.
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Lackluster execution of an intriguing sci-fi fantasy
Paul and his wife Audrey in Downsizing – Paramount Pictures
The shrinking technology in “Downsizing” offers much to explore, yet the movie chooses to focus on political and sociological issues (like immigration, inequality, consumerism, and the meaning of life) that we’ve seen hundreds of times before. Of course, if done well, those themes could’ve been enticing and captivating, but “Downsizing” never really goes beyond scratching the surface with overused clichés.
As critic Andrew Lapin highlighted in his review for NPR, “The sad thing about this movie is its core premise offers a solid glimpse of social satire, before Payne’s runaway toy train flies off the rails completely … It’s mind-boggling how little imagination, visual or otherwise, a movie about tiny people can have.” Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian called the film “a movie overwhelmed by its own ecological and human implications.”
“Downsizing” didn’t fare much better with general audiences either, as its average user scores on IMDb and Metacritic show. Overall, Alexander Payne (who wrote the screenplay with Jim Taylor) just couldn’t utilize this multifaceted, high-concept idea — at least not in the way that “Ex Machina,” one of the most terrifying movies about AI, did.
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