Sunday 24 December 2017

Review: Downsizing

Downsizing (2017) - Alexander Payne

       What happens throughout a person's life to make them feel unfulfilled? Is it because of the choices they make, or is it due to circumstances outside their control? What can a person even do in this day and age to try and get themselves out of these existential pitfalls? Is it money? Is it personal happiness and growth? Is it making a difference in the world? Also, what about the world? Isn't it our duty to try our best to preserve the ultimate gift of our planet for future generations? And let's say we do somehow make the scientific advancements necessary to save the environment and the entire Earth, is it our duties as human citizens to work together to try and improve the world? But what about improving the world on a micro level as well as a macro level? Also, wait...What if the entire world is ending?! What should we do then?! Or, or, what about the illegal smuggling of products to foreign nations? Huh?! IF THIS PARAGRAPH IS STRESSING YOU OUT THAT IS COMPLETELY UNDERSTANDABLE. All of these ideas (and more!) are at least, on some level, brought up (I definitely won't go as far as to say 'explored') in Alexander Payne's new sci-fi drama marketed as a quirky comedy, Downsizing. The movie has A LOT of ideas, and while it kinda mucks its way through most of it, parts (one part, really) of this movie were done so well and so honestly that the movie almost kind of works. Almost. Kind of.
       Matt Damon stars as Paul Safranek, the absolute epitome of "life didn't turn out the way I thought it would." He had to drop out of med school to take care of his mom with fibromyalgia, he still lives in his too-small childhood home, works as an occupational therapist at Omaha Steaks (the closest he could get to being a surgeon), and constantly feels like he's not giving his wife (Kristen Wiig) all she deserves. Well wouldn't ya know it, there just might be a cure! It turns out that in Norway a doctor (Jorgen Januss Jorgensun--I'm kidding that's not a real name but it practically is because Norway) has discovered a way to shrink all organic matter to roughly 5% of its original size, including humans. Matt Damon's high school classmate (a particularly smarmy Jason Sudeikis) has undergone the process, known as, you guessed, small-makering--I'm joking it's called Downsizing, and helps convince Damon to take the leap to a being small, where his money is worth hundreds more and everyone gets to live a life of miniature luxury.
       This is all novel enough, I guess. It's not an awful idea (and one I would have been much more excited about if I hadn't seen the same fucking trailer with the same fucking Talking Heads song over and over and over and over and over). The movie certainly seems pretty pleased with itself for the first forty-five minutes or so as well. Could you change your life by shrinking down to 5 inches tall and living in luxury? There are some really great visuals as Matt Damon undergoes the shrinking process, and there is an emotional turn or two (once again, that were just fucked to death by the trailers), but the movie really fucking drags to get started. I was fairly bored, mostly finding solace in watching Damon looking slightly fatter than he usually does. Of course you can't change your life by simply moving, even if it is to a miniature paradise where you're roughly the size of a flaccid penis. We already knew this.
        The movie legitimately doesn't matter until Ngoc Lan Tran (Hong Chau) arrives. She's a semi-famous Vietnamese protester who was arrested for her demonstrations and wrongly imprisoned for years before being wounded in a bombing attack, losing her leg, and being downsized against her will as punishment. She is rescued and sent to Leisure Land for rehabilitation, and there she works tirelessly as a cleaning lady to help the more impoverished small people living in large, dirty apartment projects outside the comfortable paradise of actual Leisure Land. Damon meets her as she's cleaning his slimy European neighbor's (played by Christoph Waltz, the human epitome of slimy European), and while helping her with her prosthetic leg (because he's an occupational therapist, you see), but instead ends up helping her literally feed the hungry and help heal the sick, due to her brash, almost rude tenacity.
       If this movie works at all, and a lot of it doesn't, it's 100% because of Hong Chau, who creates such a three-dimensional character out of what could so easily have been an offensive fucking caricature. Ngoc Lan is Vietnamese, and she is from Vietnam (the actress who plays her is from Vietnam's neighbor in SE Asia, Thailand). Therefore, she has broken English. She is also hardworking and dedicated to the point of myopia, ignoring her own health problems stemming from her missing leg and poor prosthetic. Now I am certainly not a female from Southeast Asia and don't pretend to know their plight, but the character of Ngoc Lan is not a simplified hero for our white protagonist to save. She also in no way needs Damon's Safranek to accomplish what she wants, and she sure as fuck doesn't need him to tell her what to do. It's actually the exact opposite: Matt Damon is basically a fucking mess without her. She is a strong person, a woman who understands how important it is to see the world around you and try your best to make it better, no matter what. She isn't concerned with existential crises or trying your hardest to be happy. But she's not a savior either, and she's not here to teach us lessons. She has emotions and desires and needs just like every other human, big or small. I honestly cannot believe that this movie was able to create such an interesting, complex character.
       She's so great in it, in fact, she makes you realize just how quickly the rest of the movie is bullshit. Downsizing, just like Matt Damon's publicist, has a Matt Damon problem. It's not that he's bad, per se, it's just that his character is meaningless when compared to Ngoc Lan, who has actual agency and wants to change things. Considering he's the main character of the whole movie, Matt Damon's character doesn't actually make many choices. Things just happen around him. And yes, I understand that is part of the point of the character, but it does not make for the most compelling character.
       The movie brings up so many possible philosophical debates but doesn't really have answers for any of them. Part of that is refreshing, because I definitely don't want to try and watch Payne and his co-writer Jim Taylor try and tell us what to think about environmentalism, classism, poverty, political protest, the literal end of humanity (this movie really bites off more than it can chew), and part of it is noodle-scratchy because they didn't have to try and tackle that much. Especially considering it's a "comedy" that isn't really very "funny." (Ngoc Lan gets the most laughs, and not because of her accent, but because she is a real character with pathos and doesn't dig bullshit). The movie basically should have started and ended with her (with maybe just a little bit of Christohp Waltz in there for slimy European measure). Downsizing was not a great film, but Hong Chau's Ngoc Lan Tran was fantastic in it.

Grade: 2.5 Tiny Matt Damons

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