‘Downsizing’ star Hong Chau shines in huge role as tiny exile
Film academic Rajendra Roy recently introduced the star of “Downsizing” with the claim: “This is the last day in your life when you’ll ask the question, ‘Who is Hong Chau?’” The endorsement ahead of a recent Los Angeles screening proved astonishingly prescient: within a week, the actress had been nominated for some of the biggest awards in Hollywood for her role in Alexander Payne’s satire. “After you see this movie you will never ask that question again, because she will be the brightest star in your universe, as she is for all of us who have experienced this,” gushed Roy, chief film curator at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
If the tribute sounds over-the-top, it is an assessment shared by the film industry and critics alike. Chau, 38, has amassed best supporting actress nominations for the Screen Actors Guild Awards-seen as the most reliable predictor of Oscars glory-as well as the Critics Choice Awards and the prestigious Golden Globes. Don’t expect elaborate navel-gazing about her method or motivation, however, because Chau doesn’t see movie acting as a particularly complicated job. “I never like to sit and discuss my character, the other character, our relationship or anything like that,” said the “Big Little Lies” actress, who was born in a refugee camp in Thailand. “I feel like if I did my job and I trust that the other person has done theirs, you just go on set, play around with it, chew the scene for a little bit, then we roll and that’s it.”
Environmental catastrophe
The “other person” in “Downsizing” is Matt Damon, who stars alongside the Asian American actress in a near-future world where scientists have found a way to literally reduce humanity’s environmental footprint by shrinking humans to five-inch (12.5-centimetre) versions of themselves. A combination of ecological and material motivations for being downsized appeals to Paul Safranek (Damon), a frustrated but well-meaning therapist, and his wife Audrey, played by Kristen Wiig. They sign up for the surgery, but she gets cold feet at the last minute, leaving Damon to embark alone on his adventure in the miniaturized world.
Enter Chau, a Vietnamese cleaner who was forcibly miniaturized after being imprisoned as a dissident in her homeland and has lost a leg below the knee as a result of being smuggled into the United States in a television box. Safranek strikes up a friendship with her, taking the film in an unexpected romantic direction that allows Payne to explore the idea of searching for a better life amid impending environmental catastrophe. — AFP