Downsizing
DOWNSIZING unveils a new side of director Alexander Payne that’s at once playful, spectacular, mischievous and audacious. The movie, a comedy about groups of miniaturized humans who live in tiny villages, all to save an overpopulated planet, is an outrageously matter-of-fact science-fiction fairy tale – a kind of live-action pixar movie on acid. It’s “Honey, I Shrunk the Adults” made by a deadpan social satirist. Soon we see how downsizing gets turned into a marketing bonanza. To become small is to become rich. The idea starts to look more and more appealing to Paul Safranek, a mild-mannered therapist and his wife, Audrey, who yearns to move into a bigger home, which they can’t afford, thanks to the bank’s income-to-mortgage-payment ratios. Payne touches the double nerve of our current economic jitters – the combination of shrinking paychecks and raw envy. But the audience knows that downsizing has to be a Faustian bargain. (Owen Gleiberman)
In the presence of Christoph Waltz.
- Matt Damon - Paul
- Kristen Wiig - Audrey
- Christoph Waltz - Dusan Mirkovic
- Hong Chau - Ngoc Lan Tran
- Udo Kier - Konrad
- Alexander Payne
- Jim Taylor
- Phedon Papamichael
- Kevin Tent
- Rolfe Kent
- Stefania Cella
- Wendy Chuck
Paramount Pictures
