This video is sponsored by Squarespace. Hello everyone, welcome to another NitPix
review. Get comfortable, move in close to the screen. Absorb my voice into your delicate earlobes
because we're taking it slow today. I just wanna talk about Downsizing for a bit,
since you cheeky monkeys voted for it on my twitter. So downsizing cheated all of us and I think
it's fair to say that no one likes a cheater. It sold itself as a quirky sci-fi film where
Matt Damon goes smol. It's all over the trailers and the posters. Look how smol he is. But we didn't get that at all. There's no charm, no sci-fi and barely any
smol people. All it really did try to do is make a social-political
message and even then, it was undistinguished, murky and badly executed. But you might think Downsizing is an easy
target considering it was a commercial and critical flop. The mass consensus on Downsizing is… it's
a bit shit. Despite this, I feel like everyone has a curiosity
about this film, not intense enough to actually go watch it obviously. But intense enough that you'd turn to a video
essayist to satiate that curiosity, and since no one else has done it yet I figured I might
as well be the one to do it, and who knows maybe I'll try and legitimise myself some
more by making up bullshit film terminology. Smol movies Downsizing was sold as what I'd call a smol
movie. Not a small movie, a smol movie. An example of a small movie is lord of the
rings with those hobbits or Time Bandits with those dwarfs. A smol movie would be something like Arriety
or The Borrowers, tiny little people that fit in your palm. Small people experience the world the same
way as you do, their shortness mostly functioning as a stylistic decision more than anything
else. Those munchkins perceive that yellow brick
road just the same as anyone else in The Wizard Of Oz. Smol people experience our world in a completely
different way, an ordinary unthreatening bowl of cereal becomes something dangerous and
terrifying when you're a smol person. These types of films are often underrated
and unappreciated. They a breed a very specific type of charm
which makes them really fun to engage with and I generally rate smol movies an 8/10. But Downsizing isn't a Smol movie, as much
as it's trying to convince us that it is one. It starts it's trickery as we a see Norwegian
scientist invent shrinking technology. We then see a press conference where it's
unveiled to the world. This segment goes on for 15 minutes, we see
Paul played by Matt Damon, respond to this new discovery. His reaction is: 'oh that's cool' He goes home to his mother and gives her an
injection. From there we suddenly go ten years into the
future. The concept of downsizing is re-introduced
to us, now everyones doing it and there several smol cities. The world has had to adapt to service smol
people and there's a lot of politics brewing. The entire film could have started right here,
I do not understand why we needed to watch a press conference on smol people. Paul is also reintroduced to us. He now has a wife instead of a mother, but
not a whole lot has changed really. Unsatisfied with life, Paul and his wife look
into finding a new place to live. His wife seems to think it's somehow realistic
to be checking out mansions, despite the fact that Paul receives what I would assume is
a pretty measly paycheck from his job as a workplace physiotherapist at… a meat factory? But Paul decides enough is enough, and after
seeing how good some of his old friends have it, him and his wife opt to downsize. Because when you downsize everything cost
less (jewel scene) and so they sign all the paperwork and boom congrats you're smol now,
but oh no your wife didn't actually want to go smol and didn't go through with it and
now your smol and your wife wants to leeeeave you. This leaves Damon well and truly CUCKED. Okay so we've got our elaborate set-up, our
protagonist has just made a huge life decision and now he's be forced to re-access his self-esteem,
his lifestyle and all other manners of feelings that come with being jilted. He's in a new environment, a modern city for
little smurf people. Who knows where Downsizing will take us. FUCK. Usually in a smol movie, when the protagonist
turns smol, the 2nd act of the narrative begins. "I'm a secret government agent minding my
own business. Oh no I'm smol and inside a human body assisting
an operation." "I'm a young rapscallion with not a care in
the world. Oh no I'm smol and fighting a scorpion." "I'm Jack Black and I work in a mail room. Oh no I'm a giant among these smol people." Wait that's not right. Anyway, you get my point. Because naturally, significantly changing
a protagonist's anatomy is a pretty big deal. If you think of Spiderman, Freaky Friday or
American Werewolf in London, those transformations lead the narrative and inform the main themes
of the film. Whereas in Downsizing, it moves 1 year into
the future and Paul Safranek is introduced to us again. He lives in a city as a recently divorced
man, he works in a call centre and he just so happens to be smol. Aside from the occasional overly sized prop
and dialogue, you wouldn't even know these people were a few inches tall. Which leaves the question; Why Did they make
him smol in the first place? Is it because the writer director of this
film, Alexander Payne, is a talentless hack? The Man Behind Downsizing You might be thinking to yourself what's a
triple A actor who's known for such classics as Rounders, matt damon idoing in this strange
movie about smol people? Well, I did some digging and managed to find
out that Matt Damon is a huge fan of the writer/director of this film (Interview clip) Naturally I became curious about this, so
I decided to check Alexander Payne out, and holy shit this man is a beast. Alexander Payne writes and directs some of
the most interesting, provocative, intimate, absurdist-character dramadies I have ever
seen. I would highly recommend them if you are into
stuff like this. The fact that his films don't seem to be in
the public consciousness at all feels like a real tragedy. I'm not kidding when I say, I would put his
film 'Election' on the same level as 'Ferris Buellers day off', 'Heathers' or 'mean girls'. It's proper classic material. So why haven't you heard about him up until
this point? It's probably the same reason why he's so
defined as a filmmaker. Alexnder Payne approaches his films with an
articulate cynicism that finds its way into almost all his films. None of the characters he writes are good,
kind or even likeable people. They're pathetic, selfish, lying losers who
look as ugly as they are. They're also denied the chance to redeem themselves
and maintain their flaws to the end. These are not characters that you want to
imagine yourself as. Everyone feels good vibing with Jules as he
guns people down and quotes the bible, every sixteen year old who's "so into film" wants
to be Tyler Durden. But no one wants to project themselves onto
these deplorable losers. It makes for a slightly uncomfortable viewing
experience when you find yourself inevitably seeing your own ugliness being reflected in
Alexander Payne's characters. With Downsizing however, Payne decided to
focus on acts of kindness instead of acts of selfishness and we all know what happens
when you shift from being negative to being positive. Your views drop. Paul Safranek, the protagonist of the film,
is someone who's 'Quite nice', 'Polite', 'Timid' and 'Ordinary'. He's pretty much a blank canvas, a fully grey
speck. He's in a passionless relationship, a dead-end
job and a vacant social life. This isn't all too different from Paul Giamanti's
character, Miles, in Sideways, which is also directed by Alexander Payne. They're both schlubs, the difference is in
the quality of writing. Miles has clear goals, he wants to be an author
and a desire for intimacy. When we see him fail at these goals, we see
the true character come out, we see the characteristics that truly make them pathetic and we feel
empathy. It creates an intimacy between that character
and the audience, making the narrative gripping and immersive. Paul Safranek is a man with no goals and nothing
really to lose. The decisions he makes are inconsistent, he
just goes with the flow and follows the crowd. This is called a Lazy Protagonist and NO I
DIDN'T MAKE THAT UP. He asks this woman he's dating if he can meet
her child she says no. So he goes to a smol people party, which is
basically a normal person party since the only thing that's regular sized is this rose. While there he takes ecstasy and there's this
trippy drug montage which is definitely the best part of this film. He's shown to have the romantic goal of wanting
to spouse up again only for him to suddenly have his conservative, timid characteristics
be replaced for a man out to party into he drops. So this is the start of his character arc
right? This is where our protagonists finally starts
to change? No, not really, he wakes up after the party
fully back to the same hapless nervous man he was before. While recovering from the night before, he
notices a woman is walking with a limp. Because Paul is the best darn physio therapist
in smol town, he's able to tell Noc Lan exactly what pain she's feeling. Almost like how Matt Damon can tell what cards
everyone has in Rounders. Noc Lan is so impressed with Matt Damons psychic
abilities that she demands that he comes back to her place to y'know… offer medical assistance
to her friend with cancer. Paul obviously accepts because he can't make
any decisions for himself. He's lazy, he's a lazy protagonist. Remember what I said Earli- He comes back later and Noc Lan's friend is
dead, which I think is seen as a joke… Okaay. We're treated to some brilliant dialogue and
a golden globe performance from Hong Chau. But oh no he broke her prosthetic foot, now
he has to be her bitch boy and carry her around and help her look after poor people. That's right there are poor smol people and
yes they live in smol slums. I blame smol trump. At this point in film, it becomes clear that
Downsizing has a social political message. However it's a little unclear as to what that
message is. Also, by the films own logic, it's unclear
how there could be poor smol migrants that live in a wooden box. The point of downsizing is that your money
becomes more valuable when you shrink, diamond jewellery are shown to cost $80. Is noc wan being paid 20 cents a day? After breaking her foot, Noc Wan aggressively
forces Matt Damon to be her assistant. He does this out of guilt or because he's
too nice to say no. Either way he's now going around the slums,
offering medical assistance, collecting free food and cleaning houses. Remember when you thought this would be a
smol movie, now you're watching this kid with ring worm. That's what it feels like to be cheated. Going smol is seen as helping the environment,
it produces less waste and solves the problem of over population, but the dark side is that
fascist governments will shrink people against their will as a punishment. This is what happened to Noc Wan who was a
political activists before she was made smol and became a cleaner. There doesn't seem to any kind of building
on these contrasting ideas and it seems like they're in this film because Payne thought
it would be a cool idea. Earlier in the film there's an exchange where
this man in a bar talks about how smol people shouldn't have a right to vote, his argument
makes sense and I was interested to see where this idea would be taken. But the answer is nowhere, these ideas purely
exist in the simplest of forms. Because none of the ideas in this film are
ever built on, it ends up feeling fickle and empty with its political identity. After a few weeks, Noc Wan hasn't been able
to find a replacement foot. She now walks using a peg leg instead. Paul is still helping her out, but luckily
our friend Dushan has Paul's back and comes up with a plan to get his friend out of the
unfortunate predicament of cleaning houses. Dushan who's played by Christopher Waltz is
Paul's neighbour and runs an import business. He illegally makes products for smol people
and smuggles them in. Out of all the themes and ideas farted out
by Downsizing, the most potent fart is on consumerism and capitalism. The kind of people who would want to go smol
are people who value expensive homes, items and lifestyles over their own anatomy. People who idealize a specific lifestyle presented
to us in media, who are so desperate for it that they'd abandon meaningful relationships
with their friends and family to leave in a perfectly clean city. Dushan is a character that functions to strip
away that idea at the seams. Dustan in the embodiment of the capitalist
ideology. He's highly indulgent, uncaring and focused
on money. By he is never framed as anything other than
a quippy friendly bro to Matt Damon. I thought he would take on the role as an
antagonist for Paul, but it becomes clear that the film never wants to punish or even
criticise Dushan. He's pretty much only in this film to get
Paul out of cleaning with Noc Wan. He tells Paul that he has a delivery to Norway
and ask Paul to give him a hand. Paul accepts because agreeing to do things
is what he does best. Oh and Noc wan comes too because the scientist
who invented Downsizing is going to be there and she wants to meet him. Kinda counter intuitive really. So now they are on their way to Norway, there
isn't much to say here except for the fact that Safranek and Noc Lan fuck on the boat
even though they have no chemistry. It feels awkward and they're just sort of…
together from this point onwards. The very next day, Paul wakes up to find the
scientist who invented downsizing crying about the world ending. It's ending because methane gas is coming
out of Antarctica!... what?... so we have racism, consumerism AND pollution,
this film is the equivalent of a 22 year old white guy who's just come back from his gap
year, (listen man there's so many people out there who need help, and the Bengali tigers
are dying out, the only way we can change the world is by being true to ourselves and
consuming less… gotta watch our carbon footprint man). The only leakage of methane gas I can observe
is the gas coming out of Alexander Payne's bottychoelo. HO HOO. Good day sir. Once they get to Norway the whole place looks
really nice like hobbit town and everyone starts getting ready for the end of the world. They've built a bunker and all the smol people
are going to hide in it. They plan to live there for 200 years and
then emerge to make a smol people paradise. everyones super nice and on that hippie vibe,
and Matt Damon gets proper caught up in all of it, he looks the happiest he's ever looked
in the whole movie. Look at him prance! so the hippie community
invite them all to live with them in their bunker and Paul is 100% game but none of his
mates are. They don't even seem that phased about the
approaching gas. Noc Lan's upset because she can't figure out
what kind of fuck Paul gave her, and neither can I to be honest. Paul has showed pretty much no emotion up
until the point where he started playing the bongos. Paul says his goodbyes and enters the bunker. But, he changes his mind half way and proposes
his love to Noc Wan. Such a beautiful love story, he finally made
a decision, such a filmic spectacle. Boy am I glad I watched all that smol people
shit. They go back to leisureland and continue to
help people. Then it just ends. It staggers and sputters about like a recently
shot antelope stumbling towards a lake because it doesn't want to embrace it's inevitable
death, it's breathing is heavy, it has no energy, it slumps to the soft mossy floor,
it hears the faint cries of it's children in the distance and then. Blank, no meaning, no purpose, just an isolated
expulsion of energy, it ends. Paul goes back to doing exactly what he was
doing 30 minutes ago, presumably in a relationship with a woman that is constantly belittling
him. They carry on helping people in a world which
is going to end due to pollution very shortly. I guess the end note of the film is to choose
acts of kindness over selfish acts, that life is more fulfilling when your caring for people
in a less fortunate situation than you. But when you clog up that very basic simple
message with a whole bunch of shit that's not relevant or elaborated on it makes the
most unsatisfying conclusion to any story. Film is built around actions and consequences,
events big or small. Alexander has a reputation of making films
where very little things happen in them and characters that are unredeemable. But the events in his film are cathartic and
have a sense of pathos. In Sideways, Jack cheats on his fiancé and
then we have a consequence. In Citizen Ruth, characters make terrible
life decisions and there's visible consequences that motivate the plot forward. Alexander Payne films usually have clear 2nd
acts, which dictate the film's conflict and frames the characters in a new environment
which makes them uncomfortable. With Downsizing, so little actually happens
that you spend the whole film trying to figure out its message or what it's trying to say. You might be thinking that Downsizing is simply
a standard bad movie. They have generic plots that we've all seen
before. This was Alexander Payne's biggest production
ever, he was working on this film for 7 years. The man is undeniably an auteur in his own
right and Downsizing subverts expectations of smol movies and dares to try to do something
different. It decides to abandon conventional narrative
structure, which considering his writing credits, looks like a conscious decision. Alexander Payne's films in the past has mostly
received strong critical acclaim with a small box office return. It's clear to me that at this point he is
so stubborn and resistive to studio interference and feedback, that he pushed forward with
a script that fundamentally didn't work. When Paramount was in talks with Payne on
making Downsizing, Paramounts then CEO said 'I know it doesn't make sense on paper, but
we'll do it anyway.' Downsizing had all the ingredients to be a
fantastic film, it's a film that could have put Alexander Payne on the map, but the creative
decisions behind this project has lend to a film which fluctuates between satire and
realism, surreal sci-fi concepts and white guilt. A film that is fully charmless, pedestrian
and pointless. Downsizing is nothing more than a waste of
your time. 0/10 go watch Election.
