Downsizing

Paul Safranek (Matt Damon) and his wife Audrey (Kristen Wiig) have a pretty typical existence, living from day to day, struggling to make ends meet etc. So when a college reunion comes around and they meet some old friends who have taken advantage of new technology that has enabled them to downsize they are intrigued. Downsizing in this sense means literally being reduced to being a few inches tall and they are now living in the Leisureland community of the shrunken.

It’s win-win for everyone. Mini people take up less space on a crowded planet and consume less, conserving resources as well. It also turns out that the exchange rate in Leisureland is pretty phenomenal and so everyone lives like rich retirees whatever their age. So Paul and Audrey decide to go for it.

What is great about the film is all the thought that has gone into the downsizing process itself. From detailing the discovery of the technology to showing the actual mechanics of it being done, which involves shaving off body hair and removing teeth to have them replaced later with new smaller ones. For which they have medical teams at either end, large and small, working together. It is actually eerily convincing.

The only problem for Paul is that Audrey bottles out at the last minute and instead files for divorce. The heartless ***. If this sort of thing really was possible then I’d be looking forward to the new adventure with my other half. So it would have been nice to see where that story would have gone but Paul is cut adrift by his wife and so is the film.

The film quickly needed to find him a new partner in arms to explore this new world with but instead all he gets is a dodgy neighbour called Dusan (Christoph Waltz) and it’s not even close to being enough.

Not only does Paul's wife take herself out of the film but pretty much everyone else from the first half hour is also stranded in the ‘big’ world which is then abandoned completely spawning a totally different film for the second half.

The second half stays in the ‘little’ world, so this world becomes the norm and it is painted as just like the ‘big’ world they have left behind with the same problems and imperfections. Which may be the point but it’s like they simply forgot to write the rest of the story and there is no longer anything clever or inventive about the film.

Instead Downsizing bangs on about the poor and the environment and rapidly falls apart despite Ngoc Lan Tran (Hong Chau), a girl from the poor community, gallant attempts to save it.

It is very disappointing that a film that had such a great premise simply doesn't deliver on it.

Django Unchained

Set in the pre-Civil War Deep South, Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Django Unchained’ is a Western and the story of a slave named Django (Jamie Foxx) who becomes, well, unchained. He is set free by a German dentist turned bounty hunter Dr. King Shultz (Christoph Waltz). He needs Django’s help to identify the three guys who are his next bounty and were Django’s previous owners. 

Schultz quickly discovers that Django has all the right attributes for the bounty hunting game, basically he’s good at killing people. So they team up and Shultz takes him under his wing. Shultz though makes Django a promise, that once the winter is over, together they will rescue Django’s wife from slavery too.

Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), Django's missus, is owned by Calvin J. Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) and works on his plantation home of Candieland. Which he is assisted in the running of by his head slave Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson), who’s somewhat of a turncoat for the anti slavery cause.

Tarantino films of course, divide opinion. If you like Tarantino, you’ll like scenes like the one with the KKK arguing for a good ten minutes about not being able to see out of the holes in their pillow case masks before one member rides off in a huff because his wife made them all and feels it’s unappreciated. Or you won’t.

You’ll like the gratuitous, over the top bloodshed. Or you won’t. 

You’ll like the prodigious use of the word nigger, which I assume he gets away with because it’s relevant to the time period but then again he’s got previous with this, having used the word in most of his films, just less often. Or you won’t.

Obviously it’s also got his other trademarks. Such as a great musical score, great acting, a character driven plot and someone losing their testicles. So you’ll like all that as well. Or you won’t.

You might even like Dicaprio, who it has to be said plays probably his best role ever and he talks Tarantino-speak like he’s done it his entire career. Or you won’t. 

It’s still good to see him shot though. You’ll like that.

So yes it’s a good film but I would say it’s not one of his cleverest and it’s a little too long. Certainly for our neighbours who had to make an awful lot of bathroom visits. The last half an hour seemed an unnecessary way of resolving things that could and should have already been resolved but perhaps Tarantino had forgotten to write himself into the script, so had to quickly fit his cameo in, as well as a bit more violence.

 

One final thought. Django is your typical deadeye movie gunman. He’s always first to the trigger and never gets shot no matter how many bullets are fired at him. He goes off on multiple killing sprees in the name of revenge, even if his victim’s association to him is tenuous. You would have thought that all this would have been on very dodgy ground considering several incidents worldwide in recent times including the most recent in Connecticut but no, apparently not. Just saying. You’ll like that. Or you won’t.