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Bob Mann (459 KP) rated Downsizing (2017) in Movies

Sep 29, 2021  
Downsizing (2017)
Downsizing (2017)
2017 | Comedy, Drama, Sci-Fi
4
6.0 (47 Ratings)
Movie Rating Watch
Tiny People, Big Mess.
From the trailer this film looked quirky, funny and interesting and has been on my “looking forward to” list for many months. Oh dear, what a let down.

Matt Damon (“The Martian“, “The Great Wall“, “Jason Bourne“) and Kristen Wiig (“mother!“, “Ghostbusters“) play Paul and Audrey Safranek. Paul is a laid-back and hardworking occupational therapist; Audrey has materialistic ambitions over and above their available finances. The two decide to “downsize” making use of a revolutionary Norwegian invention that reduces humans, and most other lifeforms, to a fraction of their normal size. This offers huge wealth to the normal American, since the cost of living in downsized form within the mini-estate called LeisureLand is tiny in comparison to “big folks”. But all does not go well in the transition (unlike the trailer, no spoilers here) and Paul needs to find a new purpose in life as bigger problems loom.

It’s clearly written to be a social satire, and there are some clever angles to be explored here: everyone publicly positions their downsizing based on ‘environmental issues’ and ‘saving the planet’, but most everyone’s real reason is the lifestyle benefits. Also lightly touched on, but never deeply explored, are the impacts that the downsizing initiative is having on the broader American economy and property markets, with the ‘big people’ questioning why small people should have the same rights and votes as them.

But the film never really gets into the meat of any of this. Worse than that, the movie never settles on what it is trying to be. I think we can write off “Sci-Fi” pretty early on. But is it a drama? A comedy? A love story? A socialist rant? An environmental cri de coeur? The film jumbles all these aspects together and treats each so halfheartedly that none of them get properly addressed.

Not only are the audience confused: none of the actors seem to be too sure why they’re there either. Damon – never Mr Personality – should have been able to develop some chemistry with the feisty and dynamic Ms Wiig, but even these early scenes plod along with you thinking “what a dull film”. Things perk up slightly at the LeisureLand sales fair, where Neil Patrick Harris (“Gone Girl“) and a naked Laura Dern (“Star Wars: The Last Jedi“) glibly try to sell a luxury doll’s house to the assembled crowd. American consumerism in miniature.

But post-downsizing the film crashes back to ‘Dullesville Arizona’ again, but with added depression, requiring Christophe Waltz (“Django Unchanined”, “Spectre“), as a dodgy Serbian entrepreneur Dusan Mirkovic, to over-act manically to try to add any sort of energy into the film (which he is only mildly successful at doing). There’s a rather bizarre supporting role from Udo Kier – looking for all the world like Terence Stamp – as Mirkovic’s ship-owning pal, and an almost cameo performance from Jason Sudeikis (“Colossal“).

Enter stage-left Thai-born Hong Chau as Ngoc Lan Tran, a Vietnamese cleaner. There’s a clever angle here: where “average American Joes” like Safranek can live like kings, but the poor still have to scrape by, living in ‘skyscraper Portacabins’, as the menial classes: there’s no escaping class structures, even when 5 inches tall. Chau sums up the uneven nature of the film, as she mostly plays her lines for laughs but then (in a spectacularly good bit of acting in the midst of, I have to say, some pretty poor hamming) bursts into uncontrollable tears.

Just when you think things are going to limp to a unmemorable close, the film ups and leaves LeisureLand to add a completely bizarre final act. (It’s pretty unusual in the UK for people to walk out of a cinema mid-film, but a couple did so at this point). This segment bears no relationship to the downsizing theme whatsoever, since all the players at this point could be full-sized. Aside from an amusing “50 shades of f**k” speech from Ngoc Lan Tran and a “massive explosion”, this story goes nowhere, says nothing (at least not to me) and merely irritates. Throw in a completely anti-climatic non-ending and I genuinely shared a “WTF look” with the stranger sat next to me!

This is all very strange, since this comes from Alexander Payne, who also directed and co-wrote “The Descendants”, one of the most impressive films of the decade. Jim Taylor co-writes (as he has co-written numerous other films with Payne).

I note that in this morning’s London Times that their film critic, Kevin Maher – someone who’s views I am generally pretty well aligned with – gave it 4 *’s out of 5. I can only assume that he either saw a completely different cut of the film, or he is a lot cleverer than I am and understood amazing sub-texts that completely passed me by! Maybe… but I have a sneaking suspicion that the general viewing public will more share my opinion on this than his.

I was tempted to give this just one star as it was such a disappointment to me, but the underlying concept is a good one: it is just one that has, in my humble opinion, been implemented in a bizarrely slipshod manner.
Definitely not recommended. Go and see “Coco” instead!
  
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Cumberland (1142 KP) created a post in The Smashbomb Book Club

Jun 13, 2019  
Here is a picture and description of all of the July book options. Please go to the poll, and vote for your favorite.

The Matchmaker By Elin Hilderbrand

48-year-old Nantucketer Dabney Kimball Beech has always had a gift for matchmaking. Some call her ability mystical, while others, her husband, celebrated economist John Boxmiller Beech, and her daughter, Agnes, who is clearly engaged to the wrong man, call it meddlesome. But there's no arguing with her results: With 42 happy couples to her credit and all of them still together, Dabney has never been wrong about romance.

Never, that is, except in the case of herself and Clendenin Hughes, the green-eyed boy who took her heart with him long ago when he left the island to pursue his dream of becoming a journalist. Now, after spending 27 years on the other side of the world, Clen is back on Nantucket, and Dabney has never felt so confused, or so alive.

But when tragedy threatens her own second chance, Dabney must face the choices she's made and share painful secrets with her family. Determined to make use of her gift before it's too late, she sets out to find perfect matches for those she loves most.

Same Beach, Next Year By Dorothea Benton Frank

One enchanted summer, two couples begin a friendship that will last more than twenty years and transform their lives.

A chance meeting on the Isle of Palms, one of Charleston’s most stunning barrier islands, brings former sweethearts, Adam Stanley and Eve Landers together again. Their respective spouses, Eliza and Carl, fight sparks of jealousy flaring from their imagined rekindling of old flames. As Adam and Eve get caught up on their lives, their partners strike up a deep friendship—and flirt with an unexpected attraction—of their own.

Year after year, Adam, Eliza, Eve, and Carl eagerly await their reunion at Wild Dunes, a condominium complex at the island’s tip end, where they grow closer with each passing day, building a friendship that will withstand financial catastrophe, family tragedy, and devastating heartbreak. The devotion and love they share will help them weather the vagaries of time and enrich their lives as circumstances change, their children grow up and leave home, and their twilight years approach.

The Kiss Quotient By Helen

Stella Lane thinks math is the only thing that unites the universe. She comes up with algorithms to predict customer purchases—a job that has given her more money than she knows what to do with, and way less experience in the dating department than the average thirty-year-old.

It doesn't help that Stella has Asperger's and French kissing reminds her of a shark getting its teeth cleaned by pilot fish. Her conclusion: she needs lots of practice—with a professional. Which is why she hires escort Michael Phan. The Vietnamese and Swedish stunner can't afford to turn down Stella's offer, and agrees to help her check off all the boxes on her lesson plan—from foreplay to more-than-missionary position...

Before long, Stella not only learns to appreciate his kisses, but crave all of the other things he's making her feel. Their no-nonsense partnership starts making a strange kind of sense. And the pattern that emerges will convince Stella that love is the best kind of logic...

The Rest Of The Story By Sarah Dessen

Emma Saylor doesn’t remember a lot about her mother, who died when Emma was twelve. But she does remember the stories her mom told her about the big lake that went on forever, with cold, clear water and mossy trees at the edges.

Now it’s just Emma and her dad, and life is good, if a little predictable…until Emma is unexpectedly sent to spend the summer with her mother’s family that she hasn’t seen since she was a little girl.

When Emma arrives at North Lake, she realizes there are actually two very different communities there. Her mother grew up in working class North Lake, while her dad spent summers in the wealthier Lake North resort. The more time Emma spends there, the more it starts to feel like she is also divided into two people. To her father, she is Emma. But to her new family, she is Saylor, the name her mother always called her.

Then there’s Roo, the boy who was her very best friend when she was little. Roo holds the key to her family’s history, and slowly, he helps her put the pieces together about her past. It’s hard not to get caught up in the magic of North Lake—and Saylor finds herself falling under Roo’s spell as well.

For Saylor, it’s like a whole new world is opening up to her. But when it’s time to go back home, which side of her—Emma or Saylor—will win out?

Daisy Jones & The Six By Taylor Jenkins

Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock ’n’ roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things.

Also getting noticed is The Six, a band led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road.

Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend.