Downsizing (**)

I have an immense respect for writer/director Alexander Payne, who has made some films that are very close to perfect. I am not shocked that he has taken a stumble in his latest film, but I am deeply disappointed in it. DOWNSIZING seemed flawed from the beginning, offering audiences some sort of backwards comedy trailer, and then delivering a final film that ditched humor in an attempt to find a deeper meaning. On all fronts, this movie misses the mark.

Paul is a man (played by a dull Matt Damon) who lives in a world in which European scientists invented a procedure called "downsizing" in an attempt to save the planet from pollution. It's a logical idea, told in many steps in the film's opening sequence. Cut to 10 years later, and the world has seen 7% of the population shrink down to no more than 5 inches tall. Smaller size means adjusted income, and Paul and his wife's (Kristin Wiig) modest $100,000 net worth gets then tens of millions in a football field-sized city called Leisureland.

The trailer tells us that Wiig chickens out, and leaves Paul with a divorce settlement that essentially loses him his entire fortune. From a 4-story mansion, Paul is reduced to a small apartment, working a telemarketing job (I'm sure little people do phone jobs since it's one of the only professions that could still earn a living among the "big" people) and essentially losing hope in his decision to shrink down. In typical Payne-ian style, Damon meets a host of small town characters with familiar smiles and small town dialogue.

The film takes several unexpected (potentially unwanted) turns beginning with Paul meeting a Vietnamese activist named Ngoc Lan Tran (Hong Chau), who was downsized as punishment in her home country and then sent to the US in a TV box. She has lost her foot, struggles as a cleaning lady, but Paul helps her with his physical therapy background. A romance slowly blossoms. Also present is Paul's upstairs neighbor Dusan (played by the ever-charming Christoph Waltz), a playboy who hosts extravagant parties but then in the last half of the film somehow is a respected friend of scientists and global thinkers?

That last half of the film, let me tell you... Paul and Ngoc and Dusan take a boat trip to Norway to meet with the inventor of the shrinking process only to learn that pollution will soon wipe out the human population in a matter of years. The Norway colony has tunneled deep into the mountains for sanctuary during the impending apocalypse, and intend to live in the hills for 8,000 years before repopulating the earth. What began as a simple comedy with some interesting ideas soon took a dive into pandering, heavy handed social commentary that was neither welcomed or logical. In the last half of the film we continue to meet new cooky characters, learn major plot points, and then find out that Paul is a character with no sense to him at all. I had no idea what Paul's motivations were, and in the film's 'climactic moment,' I had no idea why he changed his mind at all. Poor writing, poor editing, and poor planning.

I liked Hong Chau a lot and the way she lit up the screen about midway through when the film began to lag. Even she was unable to keep this picture afloat, a movie that I sense will soon be forgotten and regarded as a dark period in Alexander Payne's career. I don't know what went wrong. There were so many questions I had. We learn there is a net over Leisureland to keep out birds and insects... Has an insect ever killed a human? I would want to know. Another throwaway character mentions that little people should not have the right to vote, since they essentially have their own economy inside their communities and they do nothing to contribute to the larger country's finances...  Again, a story element I would have much preferred to explore. In the end, "Downsizing" is a mess of ideas and messages, none of which are particularly entertaining.