Downsizing Review

Downsizing was directed by Alexander Payne and stars Matt Damon as Paul Safranek, a middle aged man who decides his life would be better if he shrank himself. Now this movie really had my interest, I was intrigued by all of the trailers, the concept of the film and as a pretty big fan of Matt Damon I was excited to see another one of his films. Downsizing was absolutely nothing that I expected. This movie let me down in almost every way imaginable. It was a bleak, humorless and long story that didn't entertain me. Now, I don't like to say negative things about films too often, I understand that it takes a lot of work to make a film. I don't think criticism is about negativity, that being said, I had a very hard time finding any positives for this movie. At the end of this film I stood up and looked at my wife and we both had this look of "what did we just watch?" I was extremely disappointed in almost every aspect of Downsizing. I'd even go as far to say it was the most disappointing film of 2017.  I saw this movie on opening night and had to wait several days before writing a review, mainly because I didn't want to be unfair to the film. However, the more I think about the movie, the more I dislike it.

I always start with positives. But let's get into the negatives first:

1. Characterization- This movie did absolutely nothing to flesh out any of it's characters. Now I get that it's a satire and that it is a commentary on modern day life and the current climate debate going. I didn't have an issue with that. I had an issue with the fact that there was no interest in developing the characters. The director made the choice to avoid diving into the lives of the characters to show why they believed their stance. I didn't like any other characters on screen, even a little bit. So whether or not the directors commentary was saying something I believed in it was hard for me because I couldn't connect with anything. When I don't like or connect with the characters on screen I struggle to enjoy the film. I think having a strong and captivating character is one of the most important aspects of a film. Downsizing however just had flat and lifeless characters.

2. Missed opportunities- Downsizing is one of the most interesting and creative ideas I have seen for a movie in a while. Which is something Hollywood desperately needs in the middle of the age of super heroes and 80's reboots. Surprisingly, Downsizing didn't really have much to do with being downsized. A lot of the movie could've taken place while he was a regular sized human. In fact all of it could've taken place as a regular sized human. They really just would've had to switch a few plot points in the first act. This was easily their biggest misstep. Instead of having a world that was exciting and refreshing to watch, they made it mundane and left it bland. The first act of this film posed really complicated questions. Especially between Paul and his wife. For whatever reason Payne seemed to abandon everything about the concept and the first act.  The trailers for downsizing were wildly misleading.

3. Pacing and story- This was a poorly paced movie. It had beats that just didn't work within the natural flow of the film. There were sections of this film that just felt awkward and like a gigantic waste of time. For whatever reason Payne took small ideas and made them large an overbearing. Payne really rung the scenes dry before moving forward with the plot. This movie is it takes place over several years which created several issues. Whenever time jumps in movies happen it can be a little bit risky in terms of natural through line. Downsizing did not have a natural moving plot at all. In fact it felt like they would get stuck in areas and then just do a time jump to move the plot along. As an audience we don't even get to see Paul adjust to his new small life. We get a few moments when he first gets shrunk but the the whole adjustment period was skipped over. With each time jump it feels like the movie stopped and we had to restart all momentum.

4. Script- The script of this film is something that just didn't catch my attention. The dialogue was stale. Especially between the characters of Paul Safranek and Ngoc Lan Tran. I didn't buy into really any of the conversations the characters were having. There was no depth or feeling to the movie. All of the dialogue felt surface level and when there was comedy in Downsizing it fell flat.

This movie did have some good things going for it:

1. 1st act- The first act of this movie looked very promising. I was actually really intrigued by what Payne was doing. The score was very good and the shrinking sequence was entertaining. I was excited by the prospect of this film. Matt Damon's performance was good and the dynamic with him and Kristen Wiig was entertaining. It was during the 2nd act that this movie entirely fell apart.

2. Production- This movie really did look spectacular. The cinematography was great and really beautiful. I was really blown away by some of the CGI and I thought Payne did a good job at creating a world where people did feel small.

Overall, I thought Downsizing was one of the most disappointing movies I have been to in a long time. A lot of it's issues came in the pacing and the story. Downsizing was marketed to be this new and unique story. What we got was this long bloated and overdone mess that abandoned all that made it interesting by the second act. I will honestly say I don't recommend Downsizing to anyone as it was just a movie that left me sad. I am going to give Downsizing a D.