Review of Downsizing (2017) by Stephen M — 12 Jul 2018

The movie begins with Paul getting some extra food, returning to his house, and taking care of his ailing mother. Why? Because Paul is a good man. None of the people who have written their whiny MTV-generation 15-second attention span reviews below seem to notice this, and in the movie, Paul doesn't notice either. He longs to do something big with his life, to make a change.

That's why the movie has him shrink. Ironically, shrinking is sold as a "Big" thing. Get it guys?

Everyone in the movie mispronounces his name, and Paul is constantly correcting people. Why? Did the writer think they needed to add some superfluous extra lines? No, it's because no one seems to know him. One character pronounces his name correctly (ironically, a non-native speaker) and gives him the message of the movie: "You are a good man.".

While boating through a huge, beautiful fjord, the shrinking scientist gives a line which was supposed to summarize the movie neatly for the MTV generation: nature made such a huge, beautiful fjord not with one big sweeping action, but with millions of small actions working over millions of years. But the scientist misses his own point, like most reviewers here seem to do to. He continues to search for a BIG solution to save humanity. With help from his friends, Paul finally realizes that the way to save humanity is with millions of little actions, aimed at the people right in front of your eyes.

That's what downsizing is: it's not a movie about physical size, it's about shrinking your view and helping the person next to you, over and over again. Unsurprisingly, few people in this BIG country understand, or welcome, that message.