You can see why Paul Safranek (Matt Damon) would want to scale himself and his life down to five inches.
It helps save the planet: you eat less, you create less waste – but most importantly you can live a lavish life for less.
Once you are ‘downsized’ you can live like you’re a retiree (but with all your health to enjoy life) because all your possessions in the ‘real world’ make you rich once you make the transition to your new miniature world of ‘Leisureland’.
As Paul gets ready for his downsizing procedure it feels like he’s about to sign his life away to Dignitas. It’s a complicated procedure that sees him stripped of almost everything that makes him himself.
He prepares for the procedure with his monosyllabic wife but is left as lonely on the other side as he was in the real world.
Signs advertising the small world say that the grass is really greener on the ‘other side’ but the world is much the same, with its same problems and same characters – albeit just on a smaller scale.
The first half of this film is really interesting because you’re getting used to this bizarre concept – but the second half could definitely do with being downsized itself.
Things get better when Paul meets an hilarious refugee who has a problem with her prosthetic foot. The character of Ngoc Lan Tran, played by Hong Chau, is absolute genius. She is the bossiest of the bossy. She is into saving the human race and her grasp of English makes her outbursts all the more entertaining. Her mission to help people is extremely charming and she is a bit of a Robin Hood character that you can’t fail to like.
But the rest of this film is just a bit weird – people, small people, facing the end of the world in a weird cult scenario. It’s strange.
The film would have been far more interesting if Paul had more to do with the real world once he becomes small. Sadly you don’t really see much of his old world and so he could in face just be living in the original world afterall.
offbeat words 
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