Downsizing

Last night I saw Downsizing, starring Matt Damon and Christoph Waltz.

In a world where the environmental health of the planet is in jeopardy, a clever Norwegian scientist formulates a solution: To shrink human beings into tiny colonies to reduce the carbon footprint and establish a new way of life.

Of course, the incentive for most to take advantage of this technology is not the environmental altruism, but the personal promise of a life upgrade since money goes much further in a micro-society.

Matt Damon plays Paul, an occupational therapist for workers at Omaha Steaks who is married to Audrey (Kristen Wiig), who seems to be a good wife. Paul cares for his mother, massages his wife when she gets headaches and barely squeaks by on his salary. He's a perfect candidate for the sales pitch of the folks at Leisureland, the most popular micro-community for the newly transitioned.

When Paul decides to go through with the procedure, but Audrey chickens out, he's faced with soul searching like he's never faced before. He arrives in his new body craving a purpose and flying solo, until he meets Ngoc (Hong Chau), a Vietnamese micro-resident who was miniaturized against her will for activism and now serves as his neighbor's cleaning lady.

And this is where the film went off the rails.

Aside from being completely annoying, playing up the Asian stereotypes through her broken English, the movie shifts from showing us the novelty of all that tinyhood entails (protective domes to keep birds/insects from eating you, giant-size flowers, toy-size cars to transport yourself around the property) to becoming a "statement" film about either: the environment, class divisions, depression or cults. It's not sure which, and therefore neither are we.

Smaller (pun intended) players such as Christoph Waltz, who plays an enterprising, obnoxious neighbor, are welcome additions to the mix, but not there long enough to save the story.

Did I mention the film is long too? Whoever thought that editing this to 2 hours, 15 minutes was a good idea wasn't paying attention.

Or maybe they were and hoped the extra time would improve it.

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The Company Men

This morning I saw The Company Men, starring Ben Affleck and Tommy Lee Jones.

Bobby Walker (Affleck) is not a corporate asshole. Sure, his wife calls him one during a heated argument, and he does favor golfing and nice cars to the blue collar lifestyle, but at the end of the day he's a good guy. He adores his children, stays faithful to his wife and doesn't willingly try to harm anyone in his life's work.

His boss Gene (Jones) at the GTX Corporation is less of a good guy, but he does genuinely care about his employees and is incensed to learn that Bobby has been let go in his absence. He's even more pissed when it happens to him a few months later.

This is all the fault of the Big Bad CEO, James Salinger (Craig T. Nelson) who will step on anyone (even his best friend Gene) to "save" the company and his inflated salary.

An almost too-fitting film for our times, watching this felt like seeing Up In the Air turned inside out. Instead of the office side of the layoffs, we see the repercussions.

Each man deals with his loss in a different way: Bobby genuinely tries to land a new gig but the offers just aren't there. Phil (Chris Cooper) dies his hair to look younger (at the recommendation of a placement specialist), Gene goes into a state of denial.

If all of this sounds straightforward and predictable, it is, but I can't overstate how well it all plays out.

The families of the men define how they react, regardless of their pride; the safety net we all want to think is there for us collapses in a very un-movie-like way for several characters. Their pain, though difficult to watch, is refreshingly real.

The performances by Affleck, Jones and Cooper are nothing short of top notch. They aren't "too" Boston to be believable, but still capture the assumed manliness of that slice of America.

There are also great supporting stars here: Maria Bello as the devious downsizer, Rosemarie Dewitt as Bobby's practical wife, and Kevin Costner as the rough brother-in-law who dislikes Bobby, but still reaches out to help him.

I was glued to the screen from start to finish by this satisfying, honest film. Everyone who's ever been in dire straits (and that's all of us, I think) should see it.

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