Downsizing
starring Matt Damon, Christoph Waltz, Hong Chau and Kristen Wiig
written by Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor
directed by Alexander Payne
Rating: ♦◊◊◊◊
Downsizing is a science fiction comedy-drama about an American couple (Paul and Audrey Safranek, played by Matt Damon and Kristen Wiig) who decide to undertake a newly-invented, irreversible procedure to shrink their bodies so they can start a new life in an experimental community. When Audrey refuses the procedure at the last minute, Paul has to reassess his life and choices after befriending an impoverished activist.
The whole shrinking thing was thought up by some Swedish scientists who saw it as a way to save the environment, by reducing the resources we consume and, even more, reducing the waste we produce. I didn’t appreciate that angle very much, and I was glad when, at the end of the movie the original Swedish colony of shrunken people turns its back on the world and retreats into a mountain to save itself from the extinction level environmental catastrophe it believes is imminent, Christoph Waltz’s character - Dušan, a Serbian playboy whose purpose or function in the story I don’t really get - labels the Swedes a cult. That’s right, I thought.
Because they are so small, their cost of living is similarly reduced. By selling all their assets in the big world - their homes, their 401Ks - they can live like the superrich in protected communities that kind of look like Disney World to me. (Protected under a large dome, safe from hunting birds and insects, and ultraviolet radiation, etc.)
Paul and Audrey are struggling with their desire to buy a house barely affordable on Paul’s income as an Occupational Therapist. But in the small world he can afford a house like Donald Trump’s. They are drawn towards it through friends who do it, and also by a nauseatingly self-centered, materialistic infomercial hosted by Neil Patrick Harris and Laura Dern. Being small is the new path to the American dream - home ownership and grotesque display of wealth.
Dramatization of the medical procedure of shrinking is very interesting, and made me think about my experiences with nurses in hospitals (having been in the hospital for a short time at the start of the summer). A hospital is not a place for modesty even when the female nurses are young and good-looking. (Sometimes a male nurse is a near necessity.) When Paul wakes from his (irreversible) procedure he discovers that Audrey chickened out and will not be joining him. So, he is introduced to his new life, his new big house without the mate he planned to share it with and instead discovers a really annoying, noisy neighbor, Dušan.
One of the most interesting aspects of shrinking are the political implications of it, which the script introduces but does not pursue. The question of the human rights of the small could be an entire story in itself. As small people, they pay little or no taxes. They isolate themselves from the big world. They pay very little for their lifestyle because the cost of everything is reduced in proportion to their size: fuel, travel, housing, food, etc. So, the question naturally arises, should they continue to have the same legal and constitutional rights as the big? Should they be allowed to vote, for instance? And would their votes carry the same weight, be equitable with a large person’s vote? I think these questions are more interesting to consider than the original environmental reasons for shrinking.
When I first saw Downsizing in the DVD shop I was hoping it would be a silly, light family comedy like Honey I Shrunk the Kids (1989, directed by Joe Johnson, starring Rick Moranis), and I rented it just for some relaxing fun time. It wasn’t.