Downsizing

The near future. Concerned about the problems of environmental degradation, overpopulation and depletion of the planet's resources, scientists find an elegant solution – reducing a person by hundreds of times will help to get rid of problems, then he consumes much less, and waste from him is reduced significantly. The reduction procedure is irreversible, but has many advantages – "midgets" receive tax benefits, luxurious conditions are created for their lives, and in terms of reduced consumption in the future, even the most modest savings of potential "shorties" turn into millions and the opportunity to spend the rest of their lives like a real rich man. Paul and Audrey Safranek, tired of huddling in an old house, but unable to purchase new housing, decided to reduce the procedure and move to a prestigious "mini-reservation", but at the last moment Audrey "jumps off", and Paul is left alone in a new unusual world. A man's personal life in a new state does not really work out until he makes friends with an eccentric neighbor Dusan and a Vietnamese activist who showed Paul the underside of a reduced life.

Each new film directed by Alexander Payne turns into a "black box" for the viewer – we roughly imagine the somewhat melancholic style of the author, we know about his good-natured and touching attitude to the characters, we are sure that the director will definitely spice up even the most dramatic story with humor. But the most important thing is that it is impossible to predict whether the picture will affect something inside, some of Payne's films do it better, some worse, and sometimes even the most humanistic of his paintings leave the viewer indifferent. Some kind of relay does not work, and a set of individual elements does not create a critical mass for an explosion of emotions.

That's how cold and distilled the comedy "Shorter" turned out to be – a movie with a lot of stars, a claim to originality, imagining itself to be satire, but dry, callous and somehow gloomy. His characters are not charming or cute, the built–up situations look far-fetched, and the finale leaves a feeling of a swallowed piece of soap - it seems to slip unnoticed, it gives a feeling of fullness, but the taste is disgusting and I do not want to repeat it. But before, Payne was famous for this very thing – his tapes turned out to be universal, timeless and independent of mood. You can't say this about "Shorter" – the picture is not just a one-time thing, it looks extremely difficult for its only time.

What's wrong with "Shorter"? First of all, the film fails to captivate interesting characters, no one here will take the viewer by the hand and lead them into an amazing new world, on the contrary, the characters look somehow detached, self-absorbed, selfish. It's as if they don't want us to spy on them, and therefore they behave deliberately rudely and stupidly, which is sometimes frankly annoying. Unfortunately, we must admit that Matt Damon almost falls short again – as in the recent "Suburbicon", his character remains a stranger to the viewer, despite all attempts to humanize him. An even less sympathetic heroine, Wu Hong Chau, is someone who seems to need to be pitied and supported, but an Asian disabled woman manifests herself in such a way that I would like to wish her a speedy disappearance from the frame. It's a shame for Christoph Waltz at all – the two-time Oscar winner in "Shorter" turns out to be a hostage to the most rude, dull and stupid image in his career