Two-time Oscar winner Alexander Payne just debuted Downsizing at the Toronto International Film Festival, so Paramount Pictures has released the first full-length trailer for the Matt Damon-starring film our own Mike Ryan called “Payne’s most ambitious movie” although perhaps too ambitious. Downsizing tries to tackle issues of “climate change, overpopulation, race relations, immigration, disenfranchised voters, the complete extinction of the human species, and doomsday cults” all in the same movie, which means you never quite know what direction the movie will take you in next. As Ryan said, “just when you think you have Downsizing figured out, Downsizing becomes a different movie.”
The social satire stars Matt Damon and Kristen Wiig as a middle-class married couple who find out they can live rich in a planned community called LeisureLand Estates. All they have to do is agree to be shrunk down to five inches tall in a new procedure meant to solve environmental problems. Hope they’ve got a good roof on that planned community to keep carnivorous animals out. Cats have probably been wishing for centuries to find a town of bite-sized humans.
Here’s the official synopsis, although it only scratches the surface of this social satire:
When scientists discover how to shrink humans to five inches tall as a solution to over-population, Paul (Matt Damon) and his wife Audrey (Kristen Wiig) decide to abandon their stressed lives in order to get small and move to a new downsized community — a choice that triggers life-changing adventures.
Oh really? We’ll believe it’s a movie with Matt Damon going on adventures when they release a Downsizing poster with big words on his face.
– Guys, we need a poster for the new Matt Damon film, any ideas?
– Erm… How about his face with some writing on? pic.twitter.com/ZIID2mhDdP— Tom Butler (@TomButler) April 21, 2016
(Via Paramount Pictures)