I saw the preview for Downsizing and was never going to see it in a theaters. Matt Damon plays an average guy who decides to undergo the irreversible medical procedure so he can have a more financially prosperous life, but once he does, he finds himself in the same dissatisfied position that he was before. What will give his life meaning? I am not sure which is more insulting: for regular guys to get peddled the idea that he is the one that they should relate to when he is either way better or worse than they are. I would not have even watched this movie at home if Kristen Wiig did not play his wife, but she was not in the movie long enough to actually warrant my irretrievable lost time. It is a muddled movie that never finds its rhythm and possibly its point.
Downsizing is characterized as satire. Does the filmmaker intend for this film to reflect how life is or how he sees life as being? Gone are the days when universal was really code for promulgating the majority’s opinions, but this film feels like an unconscious throwback to those days. It brings a lot of assumptions to its story that I could not help but notice and question.
Downsizing is two hours fifteen minutes long, and it takes awhile to get to its protagonist by starting in Norway with the scientist who invented the procedure then fast-forwarding through the announcement. If you speak Norwegian, you get subtitles, but if you speak anything other than English, the filmmaker intends for your words to remain an inscrutable mystery to the viewers.—people of color are not heard, ignored or mysterious whereas Norway is the progressive future to be heeded carefully, and English is the universal language?
If you are not Charles Dickens, then you probably cannot pull off a bland personality free protagonist. Downsizing’s protagonist enjoys helping people, which is supposed to automatically mean that he is a nice guy. He envies men such as the doctor at his high school reunion or the showman who gives the tour of his prospective new lavish lifestyle. Blonde men who were teenage acting idols play these men that he envies. The film parallels his mother with his wife—women allegedly in pain whom he revolves his life around. His defining characteristic is suppressed anger, which is initially depicted as righteous and relatable, including when he reacts honestly to a customer’s questions, but not when a single mother reacts with less enthusiasm than he expected or reacts. Every person is special, but his expectations are disproportionate to his actual talent, and the filmmaker agrees because he keeps placing him in scenarios with people who are richer, more intellectual, beautiful or thoughtful yet he never suffers from imposter syndrome. This mediocre man has unimaginable opportunity as if it was his birthright.
If you think that I am too harsh, I would ask that you examine the scenes after he decides to walk in the shoes of a person who genuinely lives and breathes helping people. He temporarily does the work that it takes to become important. Downsizing makes it clear that he is not about that life, which is fine, but instead of setting boundaries himself, visually the director presents an intervention where the protagonist and his two European acquaintances intervene as if life was a boardroom, and this person is about to be fired from his life. He is more important than the work that she has him doing and needs to be set straight. She refuses to recognize their delusions of authority and seizes the opportunity herself. I find it incredibly intriguing that he is more comfortable setting boundaries with a genuine woman of color than any of the woman who were in his life before who were more unreasonable. Part of it was obviously borne from experience and finally recognizing that he will always be unhappy if he lives in complete service to a woman, but another part of it is due to cultural expectations.
Thanks to being in the midst of watching Mad Men, I am in the optimal mindset to empathize with the plight of the sad man who has it all or at least potentially can have it all. The unspoken promise of the provider is to have a grateful woman in his life, but instead he meets another trope, the Karen. The Karen may be the ungrateful perpetrator who is actually the aggressor, but she acts like the victim and expects no negative consequences to her antisocial actions. She will fight you with her tears, her whiny trembling voice. She is the source of his pent up rage because if he responded honestly to her behavior, it would only amplify it. They are each other’s hell whereas women of color are strong and demanding. While I am psyched that a woman of color became the love interest of the protagonist, I also thought that she deserved better. While Downsizing tries to tackle
a lot of big ideas (yes, I wrote that intentionally), ultimately the message is clear: the love of a good woman is all you need, not your own innate mission statement of how you want to navigate the world. Just copy her.
I do not think that I read Gulliver’s Travels, but a part of me wondered if it was the inspiration for Downsizing, and if the book and film expounded similarly on human nature. It is a polarizing film. You can either be a selfless, giving person or a selfish, hedonist. There is little to zero nuance or balance in the lives shown in this film. It compares and contrasts antiseptic limitless scientific progress with the messiness of real life. Comparatively the film more accurately depicts the haves versus the have nots in America versus Scandinavian countries with the latter being more egalitarian. As a huge Midsommer fan, I thought that a character’s reaction to the original settlement was an eerie, unintentional presage to Ari Aster’s horror masterpiece. The environmental concerns are a respectable veneer for superficial life choices. The film waits until the denouement to consistently go for the funny bone so if you are expecting a comedy, go elsewhere.
Downsizing seems contrary to average human nature. We are bullies, and size speaks to our reptilian brain. Tall people get paid more just by an accident of biology. I will undermine any compliment that comes my way, but tell me that I am tall, and I will choose to believe that lie. For my generation, without wearing heels, in Manhattan, I felt average height for a woman, but in Massachusetts, I am tall. Women seem to be tiny here. I irrationally love to be called tall. It matters to me. It is my version of pretty. Being tall gets you elected, makes you an authority, awards respect, not good ideas or hard work. So It is dumb, but real. The movie bandies about the idea of sizeism, but more as a safe substitute for racism yet is utterly comfortable trucking in other stereotypes such as Eurotrash opportunists. I wonder how Norwegians feel about a Swede playing a Norwegian character or a Thai woman’s depiction of a Vietnamese woman.
Downsizing is not worth your time, but would make an excellent candidate for a remake. Instead of a protagonist who conflates his dissatisfaction with his love life with the world’s ills, what would it look like to have a happy protagonist have a life changing epiphany reflected in his physical world?