Alexander Payne’s Downsizing is a sci-fi parable… | Little White Lies

Trailers

Alexan­der Payne’s Down­siz­ing is a sci-fi para­ble for mod­ern times

12 Sep 2017

Words by Ed Gibbs

Watch the first trail­er for the Amer­i­can writer/director’s upcom­ing comedy.

Alexan­der Payne has a lot on his mind. In his new film, Down­siz­ing, he presents an intrigu­ing solu­tion to cli­mate change and the world’s pop­u­la­tion cri­sis, imag­in­ing an alter­nate real­i­ty where peo­ple have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to lit­er­al­ly shrink them­selves thus increas­ing the val­ue of their assets and dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduc­ing their car­bon footprint.

On paper it sounds like the kind of social­ly-con­scious sci-fi para­ble Spike Jonze might cook up – some­thing new, then, from the acclaimed writer/​director of bit­ter­sweet, home­spun come­dies like Nebras­ka and The Descen­dants. The­mat­i­cal­ly speak­ing, Down­siz­ing looks to be Payne’s most ambi­tious work to date, while a prin­ci­pal cast of Matt Damon, Kris­ten Wiig and Christoph Waltz sug­gests that the film will be aim­ing for some famil­iar com­ic notes.

In our first-look review from this year’s Venice Film Fes­ti­val, we called the film an escapist fan­ta­sy far from the grim absur­di­ties of Trump-era Amer­i­ca.” The film doesn’t yet have a release date, but we’re expect­ing it to land some­time in ear­ly 2018. Take a look at the first offi­cial trail­er and share your thoughts with us @LWLies

Two illustrated book covers depicting a smiling Black man wearing a hat and tie, with a city skyline in the background

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