A social satire in which a man realizes he would have a better life if he were to shrink himself to five inches tall, allowing him to live in wealth and splendor.A social satire in which a man realizes he would have a better life if he were to shrink himself to five inches tall, allowing him to live in wealth and splendor.A social satire in which a man realizes he would have a better life if he were to shrink himself to five inches tall, allowing him to live in wealth and splendor.
- Awards
- 1 win & 16 nominations
Videos21
Tim Driscoll
- Good Friend Timas Good Friend Tim
- (as Timothy Edmund Driscoll)
Kevin Kunkel
- Buddy Kevinas Buddy Kevin
- (as Kevin Patrick Kunkel)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- See more cast details at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaWhen Matt Damon's character, Paul, pulls up to his new downsized home, his driver says; 'welcome to the good life". Paul makes a face in response. "The good life" is the state motto of Nebraska, the home he had just left.
- GoofsA person 5 inches tall would have a very high and squeaky voice - so high, in fact, that it would be on a different wavelength altogether and inaudible to the ears of a full-sized person, like an ultra-sonic dog whistle. (A dog might be able to hear them, but that's about all.) At the other end of the scale, a downsized person would hear a full-sized person's voice as a low growl, like a vinyl record played too slow. The downsized people all had "normal" voices - even in scenes showing them conversing with full-sized people.
- Quotes
Ngoc Lan Tran: Other night on boat, what kind of fuck you give me?
Paul Safranek: What?
Ngoc Lan Tran: What kind of fuck you give me?
Paul Safranek: What kind? I don't...
Ngoc Lan Tran: American people, eight kind of fuck. Love fuck, hate fuck, sex-only fuck, break-up fuck, make-up fuck, drunk fuck, buddy fuck, pity fuck.
- Crazy creditsThe first half of the end credits feature the camera zooming out from the chest outward of Leonardo da Vinci's famous drawing Vitruvian Man.
- SoundtracksSuite No. 2 in B Minor for Flute - Badinerie
Written by Johann Sebastian Bach
Courtesy of Extreme Music
Top review
Sci-fi comedy with a social bite. Fun and deeper than you'd think.
The easiest part to get of writer/director Alexander Payne's sci-fi comedy, Downsizing, is the allegory of shrinking ourselves and our possessions to miniature to save the planet from our excess yet become miniature plutocrats in the process. The more challenging part is to understand how he can pack climate change and economic decay also into his themes.
Paul (Matt Damon), an occupational therapist who at best is just a nice guy, and his ambitious wife, Audrey (Kristen Wiig), decide to have a richer life by downsizing, but contrary to our conventional use of that term. To shrink means to have a bigger miniature mansion, the kind he couldn't afford in a regular size that his shrinking paycheck keeps him from. Of course, in his decision to help out the planet, he is really helping to mitigate his envy of his richer friends in their McMansions.
Payne and co-writer Jim Taylor deftly move the Twilight-Zone story into a melodrama that stresses the humanity of a man who forsakes family and friends for a seemingly higher purpose such as saving the environment. However, it still comes back to greed.
At least until Paul experiences caring for those less fortunate than he, for those shrunk but still with relatively nothing, viz., the poor, the immigrant, and the sick to name a few disadvantaged souls living in a ghetto-tenement world far from the eyes of the advantaged. Once Paul witnesses real poverty he can never turn back to his truly shrunken life of excess and worthlessness.
Where Payne veers from the staples of his drama is bringing in an apocalyptic climate change, a danger not even appearing earlier. More than that misplaced motif is that he has nicely set up already the humanity that will save Paul, who must choose between survival and being together for however long with the ones he truly loves.
Downsizing is rare, a comedy in sci-fi mode with a toolbox of social concerns. It's a child of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids with a Twilight Zone spirit, and it's a pleasant holiday diversion.
Paul (Matt Damon), an occupational therapist who at best is just a nice guy, and his ambitious wife, Audrey (Kristen Wiig), decide to have a richer life by downsizing, but contrary to our conventional use of that term. To shrink means to have a bigger miniature mansion, the kind he couldn't afford in a regular size that his shrinking paycheck keeps him from. Of course, in his decision to help out the planet, he is really helping to mitigate his envy of his richer friends in their McMansions.
Payne and co-writer Jim Taylor deftly move the Twilight-Zone story into a melodrama that stresses the humanity of a man who forsakes family and friends for a seemingly higher purpose such as saving the environment. However, it still comes back to greed.
At least until Paul experiences caring for those less fortunate than he, for those shrunk but still with relatively nothing, viz., the poor, the immigrant, and the sick to name a few disadvantaged souls living in a ghetto-tenement world far from the eyes of the advantaged. Once Paul witnesses real poverty he can never turn back to his truly shrunken life of excess and worthlessness.
Where Payne veers from the staples of his drama is bringing in an apocalyptic climate change, a danger not even appearing earlier. More than that misplaced motif is that he has nicely set up already the humanity that will save Paul, who must choose between survival and being together for however long with the ones he truly loves.
Downsizing is rare, a comedy in sci-fi mode with a toolbox of social concerns. It's a child of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids with a Twilight Zone spirit, and it's a pleasant holiday diversion.
helpful•2011
- jdesando
- Dec 19, 2017
Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Official sites
- Languages
- Also known as
- Thu Nhỏ
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $68,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $24,449,754
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $4,954,287
- Dec 24, 2017
- Gross worldwide
- $55,003,890
- Runtime2 hours 15 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.39 : 1
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