Director of ‘Sideways’ swings, misses this time
MOVIE REVIEW
Director Alexander Payne got our votes when he offered a brilliantly satirical look at politics and popularity with his insightful high-school-based comedy “Election.”
And he showed with “Sideways” that he could present a story as firm and dry as a prized red wine.
He has done neither with his latest offering, “Downsizing.”
All the Oscar-winning filmmaker shows with the production is how he came up short in making social commentary, dealing with political satire or attempting just to be funny. The film is a muddled mess of ideas that might have proved more effective if Matt Damon’s performance wasn’t so painfully bland.
The downsizing here has nothing to do with the favorite corporate pastime of reducing employees. Here, it's highly literal: A Norwegian scientist has discovered a way to shrink a person who is 6 feet tall to 5 inches.
A world of Lilliputiansized people would put less strain on the ecology and be a financial boon because houses, cars, food and other things would all be so small that a person’s personal wealth would explode to gargantuan. 2:15 at the Columbus 10 at Westpointe, Crosswoods, Dublin Village 18, Easton 30, Georgesville Square, Grove City 14, Lennox 24, Movies 11 Mill Run, Movies 16 Gahanna, Movies 12 Carriage Place, Pickerington, Polaris 18 and River Valley theaters
After living a life of mediocrity, Paul (Damon) and Audrey (Kristen Wiig) decide to spend the money to be downsized. Things don’t go as planned, and Paul finds himself miserable in the tiny world. Matters get only worse when Paul meets Ngoc Lan Tran (Hong Chau), a Vietnamese dissident who was shrunk against her will as punishment for her protests. Now she cleans up after the rich and famous.
In multiple places, the film seems ready to take a stand but then crumbles in indecisive writing. Just before Paul and Audrey go for their transformation, they are confronted in a bar by a man who wants to know why people who are only 5 inches tall should have the same right to vote as normal-size people. His argument is that those who have been downsized are spending less and killing the economy.
Debates about the bigotry of such thinking could have filled the movie, but Payne brushes it off with little discussion.
And the idea that the small population is hurting the world economy makes no sense. Yes, they can make one steak last for a year, but there simultaneously must be a need for miniature technology, given that all the residents have cars, televisions, tables, clothes and any other item a full-sized person would need.
The off-target way in which Payne presents Ngoc provides the most brutally bad moments in the film. Instead of making her the focal point of the idea that size doesn’t matter, the director strips away any power Ngoc might have by making Chau play the character with an accent that consistently sounds like a cat dragging its claws down a chalkboard.
Less disruptive than the accent is the way that Payne has directed Chau to deliver the lines — so mechanically that Chau’s range of emotions go from annoyingly angry to obnoxiously irritating. This comes across as even more painful to watch because Damon shows so few genuine emotions as he gets verbally smothered by Chau.
The only person who looks to be enjoying the process is Christoph Waltz, as Paul's noisy neighbor. He loves the small life.
Payne’s main theme: Regardless of the size of the population, haves and have-nots will exist. Chau’s character should have been the spokeswoman for a small community that has been reduced to struggling to find food. Even that world is so poorly presented that the movie shows a darkness that's not part of the story.
The idea would be far more realistic if Payne hadn't made the poor and downtrodden only minorities.
“Downsizing” needed a smarter and lighter touch to make it a rich satire.
The film has more big effects and visual elements than anything Payne has directed previously, and they seemingly became a distraction.
Consequently, what should have been his next big movie ends up being a project with little to say.