Downsizing (Alexander Payne, 2017, USA/Norway)
Downsizing , the largest budget film of Alexander Payne's career, was originally conceived as a vehicle for Paul Giamatti. It is interesting to contemplate what might have happened should Giamatti have stayed in that role. The film stars Matt Damon as Paul Safranek, a man who decides to undergo a "shrinking" procedure so that he can live a new life in an experimental community of tiny people. While most claim the environmental benefits of shrinking are their reason for undergoing the procedure, in reality, it is an easy way for middle Americans to expand their standard of living, as the dollar goes much further when you are 5 inches tall. Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor's script is loaded with ideas, but one gets the sense that they were in a rush to get many of them onto the page and into the film. This concept is so big that it almost deserves a full series, and sometimes it does feel like there are too many loose ends that deserve to be explored in this univ...
