Harry T. Yung
Packaged as sci-fi, social satire, fable, or whatever else you see in it, "Downsizing" has one ultimate message: help the needy, do good - that's what make life meaningful. While the message is rendered unmistakably clear in the one final shot of the movie, the journey is meandering.With cautious seriousness, the plotline is a mindboggling scientific discovery made in Sweden, a process named "downsizing" which reduces a person to 5 inches tall, with absolutely nothing altered except the size. Consider the implications. Planet Earth, at one time considered unimaginably huge, with limitless resources, is threatened now by over-population of the homo sapiens. While it is impossible to expand Earth, the scientists have found a way to shrink people!Communities of the downsized are set up, initially in Norway as experiments, then gradually rolled out to 3% of the world's population, not really a small number if you think in absolute terms. The motivation for people to adopt this new, and alas irreversible, way of life as 5-inch homo sapiens is primarily economics. A very modest net worth of 150 thousand dollars, in the downsized world, becomes and equivalent of 12 million. The movie does not appear to have any intention whatsoever of explaining the economics. Nor do I want to even try on its behalf.Meticulously applying the aforementioned cautious seriousness, "Downsizing" is successful in making you believe in this plotline. Amidst this seriousness, however, the movie is not without humor. The first reaction of the male protagonist might have been borrowed from "Before Midnight" in which a joke is told by one of the characters on how men and women react differently waking up in the hospital after a traffic accident. The woman will invariably ask if her loved ones are alright. The first thing a man does is to take an immediate look to ensure that his member is still intact. Paul Safranek (Matt Damon) did just that!Paul Safranek is an occupational therapist working in a large corporation in Omaha. He has the same predicament as everybody else in the materialistic world - forever wanting the dream house he cannot afford. Of the same mind, his wife (Kristen Wiig) is happy to take the bold step of downsizing with him, until the last minute. As a result, Paul wakes up in "Leisureland", happy to see that his manhood is intact, only to find that the wife has not joined him after all. Misery ensues as he abandons the luxurious mansion that was meant to be the paradise for him and his wife (they divorce, as a 5-inch husband and a 5-foot-something wife surely would) and moves into an apartment (still luxurious). Complaint about the noise from the neighbor above leads to an invitation to the wild party, the source of the din. The flamboyant host Dusan (Christopher Waltz) seems to take a liking to Paul, calling him his "funny neighbor". The real story begins when Paul wakes up in Dusan's apartment the next morning, as do a few other scattered guests. Just about to leave, he encounters one of the cleaning ladies, Ngoc Lan Tran (Hong Chau, honored with a Golden Globe nomination for best supporting actress), working with perfect efficiency (but clearly in some pain) despite an artificial left leg. Professional responsibility (although his license has not been renewed in Leisureland) prompts him to approach Lan to give advice and offer help. To cut a long story short, instead of accepting Paul's help immediately, Lan enlists him into her mission of helping needy people all around her, opening his eyes to something he has never been aware of, the Ghetto area of the downsized world.Lan is a Vietnamese activist whom the government forcibly downsized, as a punishment or an experiment. She escaped to the U.S. a year ago (losing the left leg from kneecap down in the process), becoming very transiently the center of world attention, then faded into oblivion. A fighter and a survivor, Lan takes care of all the needy people around her in the settlement, bringimg them food and medication donated by her employees (such as Dusan) in the privileged class. The first one Paul sees is a widow dying of cancer. Lan knows she is beyond help but just wants to see that she doesn't die so miserably. Paul is the nearest to a doctor Lan can find. The two of them together try to administer some past-expiry-day pain killer from Dusan's apartment. Lan asks how many pills and Paul doesn't know. He suggests two but Lan says the patient needs something strong, not to mention that the pills are past expiry date. She gives the patient four. A couple of days later, when Paul comes back to work on Lan's leg, their "patient" had already died. "Maybe I gave her too many pills" Lan suggests, but adds cheerfully "But she died happily", meaning probably that she was at least relieved of the pain.The above exchange may come across sounding farcical but that is the crux of what I suggest in my summary line. The "preaching" works, entirely because of Lan's character. Hardened by political prison (where she lost her sister) and narrow escapes from death, Lan is hard as a nail, bossing Paul around as if he was a little kid. But she has other dimensions too. Simple-minded but by no means simple, she can at times be downright funny. What really shines is her selfless dedication to helping the deprived, the down-trodden, the helpless. After the two sequences in two polarized worlds in the downsized universe, Paul's opulent Leisureland and Lan's depressing ghetto, there comes a final sequence that is quite unexpected, but a bit contrived. Without revealing the details, I'll just say that our two protagonists join Dusan in a journey to the original downsized village in Norway. It is in this idyllic and tranquil setting that the romance between Paul and Lan blossom. But with the endearing tenderness comes a struggle to find one's true destiny, punctuated by the most outlandishly hilarious scene that reminds you of "How do I love thee, let me count the ways". There is absolutely no way you will fail to recognize it.The support cast is solid, Waltz is fabulous, Damon is somewhat dwarfed (and I am not speaking literally) and Chau takes the movie up a few notches the moment she appears. Her Golden Globe nomination is well deserved.
hemmensm
This movie had the fortune of dealing with an interesting and unique plot that almost stood out from its crowd and made everyone intreagued by the time the first trailer was released; but sadly, the fIlm wasn't exactly able to put this premise to good use and the result is a mediocre film, longer than what it was supposed to be with a variety of non compelling and non amusing scenes that make you leave the theater disappointed and bored. Albeit, the movie still had some pros like the famous actors, eventhough at some points their performances made it look like even they were bored with the plot, the special effects and the sets and sceneries of the movie. This is one of those movies that we will easily forget as time passes.
