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Downsizing
USA 2017
produced by Jim Burke, Megan Ellison, Mark Johnson, Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor, Diana Pokorny (executive) for Ad Hominem Enterprises, Annapurna Pictures, Paramount
directed by Alexander Payne
starring Matt Damon, Christoph Waltz, Hong Chau, Kristen Wiig, Rolf Lassgård, Ingjerd Egeberg, Udo Kier, Søren Pilmark, Jayne Houdyshell, Jason Sudeikis, Maribeth Monroe, Phil Reeves, James Van Der Beek, Alison J. Palmer, Tim Driscoll, Kristen Thomson, Kevin Kunkel, Patrick Gallagher, Linda M. Anderson, John Reynolds, Carmen Orellana, David Noonen, Bob Bezousek, Ana Marie Cox, Roland Martin, Milo Goodman, Dave Sokolowski, Michael Heathcote, Martha Girvin, Brendan Beiser, Alison Brooks, Paul Constable, Neil Patrick Harris, Laura Dern, Niecy Nash, Margo Martindale, Kerri Kenney, Donna Lynne Champlin, Don Lake, Mary Kay Place, Sherry Mandujano, Larry Mannell, Kerry-Lee Finkle, Natasha Bromfield
written by Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor, music by Rolfe Kent
review by Mike Haberfelner
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In the not too distant future: Paul (Matt Damon) and his wife Audrey
(Kristen Wiig) find it hard to make ends meet - at least if they want to
maintain their middle class status. So they decide to have themselves
shrunk to a few inches high (a relatively new and popular technology) and
move into a community of little people where their little money's worth a
lot. But during the downsizing process, Audrey freaks out and doesn't go
through with it, leaving Paul alone in this new world of little people.
For what seems like forever he suffers from his divorce - until he meets
his neighbour Dusan (Christoph Waltz), a hedonist and smuggler with a
heart of gold, and his closest ally Konrad (Udo Kier), whose yacht serves
Dusan's purposes more than well. Through them, Paul also meets Lan Tran
(Hong Chau), a fugitive from Vietnam who has been a media personality once
but is a cleaning woman now who does humanitarian work on the side. She
has lost a leg, and working on her artificial leg gives Paul, who has once
been a phisiotherapist but is now relegated to work in a phone help
center, meaning in life again. But then he fucks up her artificial leg and
in turn she demands he does her work - not only cleaning but also feeding
the poor and the like - and against all expectations he enjoys it. Then
though Dusan and Konrad need Paul for a mission to Norway to the very
first colony of downsized people (though it's never known why they need
him) who live there like the Amish, and Lan Tran insists to come with
them. On the journey, Paul and Lan Tran become lovers ... but once there
it becomes clear that the first colony is a bit of an end-of-the-world
cult who want to go underground to sit out the next big (man-made) natural
disaster, ice age or whatever as a sort of Noah's Arc - and Paul wants to
join while Lan Tran feels it makes more sense to help the humans now ... The
basic idea of Downsizing is really fantastic, and visually it's
brought across just fine. The problem here is with the script that breaks
down the concept in way too many parts that seem to exist independent from
one another. The result is that many narrative threads are thus not
resolved or even not allowed to reach any considerable potential. So just
like it's lead actor Matt Damon, the film seems to be stumbling through
its world a bit on the clueless side, not even sure which approach to
take: It's satire, drama, soap opera, enviromental message movie, love
story and whatnot all rolled into one. Besides the beautiful pictures, the
acting's one of the high points of the movie (though Damon remains a bit
too bland), even if most of the characters lack depth from the story side. In
all, that could have worked beautifully as a limited series on Netflix or
somewhere, where each of the narrative threads could be a full episode, as
a movie it just feels muddled - with sparks of greatness though!
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