Film Review: DOWNSIZING

Matt Damon, still big, and his pal Jason Sudekis,
post-downsizing, discuss the pros and cons of getting small.

If you are a fan of bad cinema, this one should be on your list, maybe even at the top. Downsizing was released in 2017 and nobody saw it, or those who did likely forgot it, or tried, the minute they left the theater. Back before Covid people went to places called "movie theaters." They had to either walk out or sit through a dog film to the end. Luckily I watched it on my big-screen television at home, so I could fast forward when necessary. And trust me, it was necessary quite often.

Starring Matt Damon, who looks sick about it during the whole thing -- you could tell he was thinking, "Find new agent immediately" -- and Kristen Wiig for about the first 20 minutes then she's gone, it starts out with some promise along the lines of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids but without the humor. They play married couple Paul and Audrey Safranek who decide to undergo a new medical procedure that miniaturizes people, invented to save the planet from the coming ravages of overpopulation. 

At five inches tall, people exhaust fewer natural resources and create much less waste, etc. But the real perk, as explained  by their already-small friend (Jason Sudekis), is that their money goes a lot further. Like a lot further. In the upscale small community where they will live, they can afford a huge mansion instead of the tiny dump they now inhabit in Normal-land.

The first part is fun, as is watching the details of the procedure one undergoes to get small. After that, all is lost. It's a big mish-mash, brightened briefly by the charm and considerable acting skills of Christophe Waltz, and God only knows who and how they talked him into doing this film.

Spoiler alert: Audrey chickens out at the last minute and stays big, leaving Paul a lonely, unhappy teeny-tiny divorced man. We follow him to Small World (called something else) where he is awkward and seemingly suicidal (and who could blame him), until he meets a one-legged Vietnamese cleaning lady who introduces him to the incredibly slummy side of life beyond the walls of his fabulous gated community, where the service people live. 

Fast forward, fast forward, fast forward, went to the bathroom, got a snack, thank you God for letting me fast forward, finally came back to find that Paul, who was an occupational therapist in Normal-land, has become a doctor and now dedicates himself to caring for the sick and dying tiny slum people. Oh yes, and he has fallen in love with the Vietnamese lady and makes her a new prosthetic leg.

I'm leaving out all the stuff about the members of the cult in Sweden who go to live underground for 8,000 years until the Earth stabilizes after the horrible things that will happen. (I was in the kitchen.)

See what I mean?