Film review: ‘Downsizing’

“Downsizing” begins in Bergen, Norway where Dr. Jørgen Asbjørnsen (Rolf Lassgård) successfully undertakes an experiment in which a rat is shrunk to 1/500th of its previous size. Thrilled with his accomplishment, the good doctor bets that any technology that works on a rodent can work on Matt Damon.

Damon plays Paul Safranek, a Middle Western occupational therapist-writer/director Alexander Payne, no doubt concerned that his lead actor remains essentially Bostonian, puts him in an Omaha Steaks polo shirt so we don’t forget about Nebraska.

While intrigued by the new downsizing fad, Paul is too cautious to be the first local to shrink himself. A high school friend, Dave (Jason Sudeikis), arrives at a class reunion in a tiny glass box, looking chipper as all get out. The same evening, Paul gets very jealous of another former classmate, played by none other than James Van Der Beek, who has become an anesthesiologist, snug in his suburban McMansion.

Paul feels encumbered with insufficient down payment funds for a new human-sized house and a wife, Audrey (Kristen Wiig), who suffers from migraines and a generalized dissatisfaction. Downsizing is pitched as a solution for overpopulation and global warming but, more importantly to customers, it’s an opportunity for the middle class to feel rich-$150k in large human equity is like $12M when you’re miniature.

Paul and Audrey soon plan their move to the Lilliputian community known as Leisureland (it looks just like Arizona) where their middle-class bankroll affords them a palatial abode-in an enclave called “The Summit at Navajo Orchards”-the walls adorned with postage stamp Van Goghs.

But Audrey, with a classic “Don’t be mad at me” preface to her statement, reveals that she’s remained human-sized after Paul has already been shrunk and scraped up with a spatula. Oh, and she divorces him, so the mansion goes too. Lil Paul finds himself alone in an apartment selling Land’s End products over the phone.

Happily, Paul meets Dusan (Christoph Waltz), a black-market entrepreneur and partyer who lives above him and explains that the authorities don’t have the bandwidth to “chase Serbian guys five inches tall.” At a small bacchanal, Paul sees a lot of things that blow his Nebraskan mind, like recreational drugs and people of color. Dusan sagely cautions: “Don’t be so American.”

Our hero soon falls in with Ngoc Lan Tran (Hong Chau), a political activist from Vietnam downsized again her will by a corrupt government. Presumably it’s also against Chau’s will to be compelled to speak in heavily-accented pidgin English for laughs. She lives in the housing projects and brings her downtrodden neighbors Olive Garden leftovers and Percocets.

Payne is most successful in his stunt casting, in which the legendary Udo Kier plays Konrad, a mini-ship captain whose luxury yacht can be shipped ahead via FedEx to exotic ports of call. There are other tantalizing cameos by people more interesting than the main characters-tiny salespeople Jeff and Laura Lonowski (Neil Patrick Harris and Laura Dern) are the shills who charm the Safraneks but somehow don’t reappear.

The film suffers from the same blandness as Leisureland-though filled with many conversations about what it means to be small, the film lacks sufficient visuals showing the gap between the shrunk and the unshrunk. Dusan’s apartment is the most enjoyable space, where a Polaroid is hung like an oversized poster and a framed dollar bill becomes a Damien Hirst-like statement piece. But what about some fun inter-sized interaction?

Bizarrely, the final act of “Downsizing” involves a Noah’s Ark plan hatched around a dubious Norwegian drum circle. There Dr. Asbjørnsen claims that homo sapiens has not been a very successful species-just one more interesting concept not fully explored by the film.