The environment remains a hot topic, which of course also makes its way into movies. As the world gets more crowded, temperatures rise and we still do too little to change it all you might wonder how we could solve it. In Downsizing a brilliant solution has been invented: To make people smaller (roughly the size of a finger). That way a community of small people will create only one bag of trash in four years, which would take an average family only two weeks. Small people use less energy, don’t need as much food and it seems to be the perfect way to do something about the environment issues. Director Alexander Payne (Nebraska, The Descendants, Sideways) tries to turn that idea into an interesting movie, but unfortunately doesn’t completely succeed.
Paul Safranak (Matt Damon) and his wife Audrey (Kristen Wiig) are a normal couple. They work hard, but still aren’t able to live in their dreamhouse. They don’t see that changing anytime soon and when they meet some former classmates who decided to have themselves minitiaurized, they decide to do the same. The will live in special cities, where they could own a huge house. The Safranaks would be able to live like kings as your money is worth more. When Paul has gone through the procedure, it doesn’t go exactly as he had imagined it. He does meet some interesting people though who show him different sides of life.
Downsizing starts well and convincingly shows the concept of making people smaller. Some people are very critical about it (because what will small people do to help the financial system, should they be able to vote?) and intially the Safraneks have doubts as well. During this part of the movie I really was wondering where the movie would go. There are so many directions you go take this concept. What are the threats (both physical and regulatory)? Is the procedure safe? Which conflicts can this lead to? Should small people have different rights? Unfortunately Payne doesn’t choose for any of them. You might hear it mentioned, but that’s about it. And that’s the biggest issue this movie has: lack of conflict. It’s more about Paul and his self discovery and that makes it a disappointing film. It does too little with its potential. As soon as you are in the “small world” hardly anything happens in relationship to the “normal world” and the story might as well be told without the whole downsizing. This doens’t make this a bad movie, but it could have been so much more and that’s a shame. Just imagine what a show like Black Mirror would have done with it and you know what I mean.
[score6]