Downsizing

2017’s DOWNSIZING confirms writer/director Alexander Payne’s humanitarian/humanistic heart.  I've read reviews that accuse him of elitism, contempt, condescension, of a propensity to focus on the worst of human behavior - none of which I agree with, by the way.  Payne likes to show us how many Americans exist and behave, usually in the flyover states.  The good, the bad, and whatever.  It mostly comes off as genuine, the result of an artist who paid attention in diners and at backyard barbecues in Everytown.   His movies don't take place in NYC or L.A., rather often in Nebraska, his home state (and title of his 2013 film).

But Payne does cast a very satiric eye, perhaps most devastatingly in the early movies like CITIZEN RUTH and ELECTION.  I feel his films have grown warmer, reflecting a more bemused sensibility.  One that still grills his subjects (and subject matter) when necessary but with a respect for human flaw that rarely feels like point-and-laugh, even during that scene on the couch in the aforementioned NEBRASKA where two doofuses rib Will Forte's character.  From its trailers, DOWNSIZING appeared to be somewhat of a return to more potent satire - taking aim at American consumerism, the American Dream, and so on.

For the first half to hour, it is just that.  The premise involves a new procedure (developed in Norway) that allows humans to shrink down to five inches tall, thereby allowing them to stretch their legal tender much further.  Perhaps allowing even middle class shlubs like Paul Safranek (Matt Damon) to live like kings in planned communities that sport all the ammenities, and even have a Tony Roma's! Paul and his wife Audrey (Kristen Wiig) struggle to support even a modest lifestyle. "Getting small" seems just the ticket, especially after old high school chum Dave (Jason Sudeikis) sells the concept at a class reunion.

The satire is gentle but thick as we get a glimpse of the marketing of getting small.  While some are focusing on the environmental benefits (far less waste), others are raving that they can buy jewelry and mansions on a (former) busman's salary.  The ultimate retirement package, it could be.  The film explores what life would be like at such a size...and later it, doesn't.  The film transforms into something very different.   I will not spoil the plot, but immediately after being shrunk Paul will have buyer's remorse in Leisureland, with a series of life surprises he (or we) might not have imagined.

Paul will meet a handicapped Vietnamese cleaning lady named Ngoc Lan Tran (Hong Chau) who will change his life, teach him about service, stewardship, caring for others.  In other words, letting go of the whole middle aged white male first world problem bullshit.  Many of Payne's protagonists fit this mold, and may even take a similar journey in their respective films. So what's the issue with DOWNSIZING?

The switch is gradual, yet somehow seems abrupt.  Payne was steadily building a very different sort of movie, one that might've taken a fascinating concept and expanded on the sociological, political, sexual, and psychological issues that would unavoidably accompany the decision to "downsize", perhaps within a mildly science fiction matrix.  The film plays as if the director ran out of things to say (not many to begin with), or maybe got bored with this original idea and decided to fashion a story of awakening, of finding one's true purpose.  The third act especially follows this idea, and the problem is that it feels rather engineered, dramatically hollow, and even self consciously pious.  Damon's performance wasn't entirely convincing.

I have to wonder if, given the outcome of this film, the realizations Paul come to by the finale, the whole downsizing plot was even necessary? One could argue that it required such a drastic, irreversible change for him to get there.  But I tend to think that if he had met Ngoc as a normal sized person (her too, of course), he may well have had a similiar metamorphesis, if you will.  Maybe not.

I applaud any film that attempts a positive message, one that chooses to see the light in lost souls.  But, we all know about good intentions. DOWNSIZING bombed at the box office and had mixed reviews from critics.  Whatever your feelings on each, very different section of this film, I don't think it's too debatable that the pieces don't really fit together.  The resulting two plus hours are an unfortunate, uneven mess.

P.S. Christoph Waltz, who plays Paul's upstairs neighbor, Dusan, a Serbian playboy/swinger in Leisureland, absolutely steals every scene he's in with his hilarious performance.  That enlarged photo of a younger version of himself with the cigar, for example, is pure Paynesian, and I wish there had been more of that sort of thing in this movie.