Matt Damon stars as Paul Safranek in Downsizing, the latest movie from writer/director Alexander Payne. Set sometime in the future, Paul and his wife Audrey (Kristen Wiig) agree to undergo a procedure called “Downsizing” where they are shrunk down to just a few inches tall. It’s an increasingly popular choice, driven by concerns that full-sized people are using the planet’s resources too fast and that shrinking – and thereby requiring less food and water – is the key to responsible environmentalism.
The decision they make winds up taking a turn when, at the last minute, Audrey backs out. That leaves Paul irreversibly shrunk and on his own to adjust to his new reality. In the tiny town he moves to he meets a number of interesting new people, including Dusan Mirkovic (Christoph Waltz) and Ngoc Lan Tran (Hong Chau). Both of them influence how he adapts to the strange new world he finds himself in.
Cinematic Slant 