Within a few minutes of starting to watch director / co-writer Alexander Payne’s comedy / drama, Downsizing, the thought ‘Oh, no… this  isn’t going to be ridiculous, is it?’ crossed my mind. Starring Matt Damon, Christoph Waltz, Hong Chau and Jason Sudeikis, Downsizing is a social satire about a man who decides that he’d have a much better life if he were to shrink himself.

I definitely had a good time watching this movie. This is true even though the film didn’t really get properly exciting for me until it began to deliver on its ‘part-comedy’ categorisation promise; something that finally happens approximately thirty nine minutes in. Everything before that point is ‘kind of engaging’ but it felt slower than one might prefer.

I laughed a pleasing amount in the film and many of the wonderfully funny scenes featured Damon’s clueless Paul Safranek character. I found Paul particularly amusing because he seems to suffer from a kind of ‘blindness’ that I haven’t seen played / written quite as well as it is in this movie for a while. I laughed mostly at him and his apparent cluelessness in several situations.

Beside the memorable comedy performances, I enjoyed the sci-fi aspect of the story and how, knowing the challenges of modern life as well as I think I do, one might actually decide that shrinkage was a good idea.

As engaged as I was with the story as non-action movie, there were moments nearer the beginning where I couldn’t help but half expect Damon’s character to suddenly burst into action-movie-star mode and start running and punching. That didn’t quite happen here but I’m certainly not disappointed either. Though slow in parts, the humour – also delivered well by Waltz and Chau combined with the story plus the moving moments made sure I stayed in my seat.

I say give it a chance, you may just find it as laughter inducing (in parts) as I did.

Happy Film Loving

G