Movie Review: Downsizing

A novel concept, scientists have devised a way to shrink humans down to .035 percent of our current size. With this innovation comes the opportunity to live in abundance, Humans need less of everything when they are this small. The catch is that everything still has to be made miniature for humanity to adopt this so we flash forward 10 years later and whole communities that support this miniature lifestyle have sprung up. Also, we learn that the process is irreversible.

We soon meet Paul and Audrey Safrane (played by Matt Damon and Kristen Wiig), a couple struggling financially in a world that is also facing some adjustments from people deciding to go miniature. We see how with people making this change, they are effectively not participating in the economy the same way. Consumer spending is down and the world is starting to see more turmoil as people make the change. Money goes much further when one is small.

So Paul and Audrey decide to make the change and go micro. They are set to move to Leisureland, New Mexico. The process for becoming small involves a medical procedure in which your hair is shaved completely off, including all body hair. Any dental fillings and implants will need to be removed, as well as any prosthetics or artificial replacement joints from previous operations.

We see Paul go through the entire process with the other male patients who have decided to downsize themselves. Great care is taken to assist them through a bevy of procedures by a group of nurses. It takes only 5 hours and the subjects are all sedated for the shrinking part.

We learn that the female patients are handled separately, and we soon find Paul waking up as a miniature version of himself, who is only 5 inches tall. He wonders about Audrey and a nurse tells him that perhaps she was held up in dental. Paul then gets a phone call from Audrey and she is deeply apologetic, its not hard to figure out she has backed out and first Paul reasons that they could talk through it all but Audrey has also decided to leave him entirely.

Paul resigns himself to living alone as he cant be unshrunk, He starts out living in a huge mansion but soon finds he cant afford it and has to move into a more affordable apartment. His occupational therapy license lapsed as he didn't think he would have to work again so now he has to take a job answering phones as a customer service rep.

Life doesn't work out the way he wanted, Paul soon attends a party being hosted by his unusual neighbor Dusan (played by Christoph Waltz). He learns his neighbor is eccentric but might actually be a decent person.

He wakes up on the floor of Dusan's apartment after a night of partying to see the cleaning crew come in. At this point, I am wondering if this is exactly what it is cracked up to be, as there are many people who seem to still need to work. Paul meets one of the cleaners after seeing that she has a prosthetic leg. He finds her filling her pockets with all kinds of prescription painkillers.

Paul actually recognizes her as Ngoc Lan Tran (played by Hong Chau), a Vietnamese political activist who was jailed and downsized against her will, escaped in a television box, barely survived being shipped to the United States, and was brought to Leisureland a year ago to have her leg amputated.

The story starts to take a bit of a different tone, I wouldn't say this movie is pure comedy or pure drama, more of a mix of both with some romance mixed in as well. I really enjoyed it and its not something that really followed to much of a formula; it's also a fairly heartwarming movie by the end, and one I recommend is well worth a watch.