Movie of the Week: Downsizing

[jacey]

What a mess of a movie. The plot meanders and doesn't really go anywhere and even Matt Damon in his 'everyman' role can't quite lend it authenticity. The world's resources are finite but when a scientist discovers that humans (and animals) can be shrunk to a tiny fraction of their original size he thinks the problem is solved. All humanity has to do is shrink itself and the resources will go round a lot easier.  But, of course, this is (with one exception) voluntary and only a fraction of the population undergoes the process - and they are relegated to special cities built to accommodate them. Since they don't appear to have any industry I'm not sure where all the teeny-tiny washing mashines and teeny-tiny vacuum cleaners come from, but - hey - let's not get picky. Matt Damon's character is supposed to be shrunk with his wife, but when he wakes up, a mere five inches tall, she hasn't kept her part of the bargain. The rest of this is a meander through his pointless life, a messy divorce and eventually a love story as he meets someone very unlikely and gradually gets sucked into her life. Kudos to Hong Chau for her role as Damon's love interest, a Vietnamese refugee, made small as a punishment for dissidence.