The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

Do you ever see food coming at a restaurant, looking completely delicious, but upon first bite it’s just disappointing? Directed by Alexander Payne (mostly known for comedies like Election) and starring Matt Damon, Hong Chau and Christoph Waltz, the film was released in Egyptian cinemas on Wednesday the 17^th of January, and gave us a similar feeling of disappointment.  

Downsizing is set in a future time. Specifically, the film is set in a time when scientists have developed the technology required for shrinking humans to the size of a mere few centimeters. This was done in an attempt to scale down on human consumption habits and to correspondingly limit the amount of waste that humans produce.

Paul Safranek (Matt Damon) and his wife – Audrey Safranek (Kristin Wiig) – undergo the downsizing procedure, as it becomes increasingly popular among humans. This increasing popularity is attributed to the fact that those who undergo the procedure are promised a life of luxurious living, in a town created for the downsized. Upon moving to this small people’s town, Safranek meets several atypical characters; these characters push him down a path of on an unexpected, and life changing journey of self-discovery.

The film’s genre remains debatable. The film is enlisted as a comedy, a drama, and a sci-fi, and this is not essentially a great thing in the case of this film. Indeed, the film is actually quite lost amongst these numerous genres; it does not muster up enough laughs to qualify as a comedy, nor does it hit the intended emotional spots required for it to qualify as a drama, and finally there are simply too many loopholes within the scientific fictional aspects of the film for it to live up to the caliber of other films within the sci-fi genre.

While any decent film’s anchor ought to be its script, this film’s script had too many flaws for it to be described using the term anchor. Specifically, the film left several unanswered questions about character motives, hindered the protagonist’s development, and rushed through major narrative points.

Given the script’s weakness, Matt Damon’s impressive acting skills were done a huge injustice. Whilst Damon portrayed an awe striking level of maturity as an actor, he seemed to be battling against the film’s flat script. Resultantly, Damon’s portrayal seemed quite cheesy, a bit hyperbolic, and somewhat fake. This made Damon’s character difficult to sympathize with.

Ngoc Lan Tran (Hong Chau) stood as the main comic element within the film’s text. This can be attributed to her squeaky voice, her funny English accent, and her snappy personality. However, largely due to the script’s weakness, Chau’s love story with Paul was quite thinly underdeveloped and rushed, to the extent that audience members were unable to grasp the root behind this love story.

Saving the best for last, Christoph Waltz’s portrayal of Dusan Mirkovic  – Paul’s Serbian party-loving neighbor – was perhaps the strongest element of the entire film. Waltz’s performance was so obnoxiously genuine, to the extent that it helped uplift his relatively flat scripted lines.

Second to that, the film’s shot sequences and aesthetics were excellent. For example, the detailed sequence of the downsizing process itself, help male this process seem quite plausible for audiences, and perhaps qualified as the best sequence within the film. The film’s scenery and landscape frames were also quite noticeably outstanding, with their beautiful shots of Norwegian nature and their bird eye views of cities.

All in all, while the idea of downsizing in an effort to preserve the planet may have seemed comical at the beginning of the film, as the narrative progressed forward this idea became plausible as a possible solution for one of the earth’s biggest problems. Unfortunately, the fact that the film contained traces of an incomplete journey of self-discover, a last minute love story, and a saturation of serious issues presented but not adequately explored (namely politics and human nature), are all elements that left far too many cracks in the aforementioned idea unaddressed.

The truly saddening aspect of this film is the extent to which the idea presented in it could have been imaginatively ruminating, if given proper execution. Additionally, Matt Damon’s wasted effort, and Christoph Waltz’s performance being limited to a mere supporting role, make us say nothing short of the following statement: Oh what could have been!