Is Downsizing really that bad?

yeah I mean he might want to stop interviews for awhile.

I can’t wait for you to make a thread about it being a box office bomb..... Not.

Apparently this:

One of the 47-year-old actor's recent controversial comments was, “We’re going to have to figure — you know, there’s a difference between, you know, patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation, right?”

He added, "Both of those behaviours need to be confronted and eradicated without question, but they shouldn’t be conflated, right?”

Although he denies it, Damon allegedly helped to kill a Harvey Weinstein harassment story that was due to come out in 2004.

But he has admitted that he knew Weinstein harassed actress Gwyneth Paltrow decades ago and continued to work with him. (Via The Independent)

I just saw Downsizing, and it certainly is not a good film. I would consider the movie "mediocre" (at best), saved from sheer lousiness by some compelling human touches and ironies in the film's middle passage. Here is my review: 

Four years ago, director Alexander Payne successfully—and organically—braided comedy and dramatic pathos in Nebraska, delivering one of 2013's best films. In Downsizing, which he also co-wrote, he aims for a similar blend (albeit in a very different context, narrative-wise and visually) yet misfires. Seeking to constitute both a comedy and an epic human saga, Downsizing comes across more as an intermittently fizzling experiment. The attempted humor is muted and awkward, and it jangles discordantly with the movie's search for soulfulness. Downsizing takes the old Honey, I Shrunk the Kids idea and tries to play it in cerebral fashion rather than as slapstick, but the suspension of disbelief required for this quasi-intellectual approach proves too much. As a saga, meanwhile, Downsizing lacks intensity and momentum. The whole film suffers from a lack of tension, and it fails to cultivate the human depth and power needed to sustain a surrealistic epic. In effect, Payne's tone is not playful enough to work as comedy yet too playful to achieve his grander ambitions. 

The movie does offer some intriguing ideas, specifically related to the concept of charity and human decency, dignity, compassion, and revelation. Circumstance forces Matt Damon's protagonist out of his shell and into seeing the struggles of others, such as the custodial staff populated by minority women. There is another side to even this fantastical society, and the film unpretentiously suggests that there is redemptive value in helping those less fortunate than oneself, even for those in unfortunate situations. The allegory presented by these scenes and sequences is relevant to our existence and transcends the movie's gimmickry, however briefly. Moreover, in those portions, the humor is inherent and the irony feels naturalistic, working with the material rather than struggling against it. And Downsizing also presents the quandaries of life when faced with difficult decisions that carry irreversible consequences. Unfortunately, the movie fails to probe human characters and relationships in a way that would render these quandaries powerful and moving. 

The sad part is that Downsizing might have been a good film had it dropped the whole ruse of, well, "downsizing." The film's narrative conceit—the supposed motivating vision—turns out to be a distracting gimmick that the movie did not really need. "Downsizing" largely serves to catalyze the protagonist's

SPOILER: Click to show

divorce, to facilitate the formation of an underground colony that the Damon character wants to join in order to escape a climate apocalypse,

and to allow Payne to make some intelligent 

SPOILER: Click to show

geopolitical statements, namely how Israel is "downsizing" Palestinians and autocratic regimes around the world are "downsizing" political dissidents.

But surely Payne and his co-writer, Jim Taylor, could have figured out other ways to make these points and create these narrative developments without an empty comic device that ultimately detracts from their best material. Visually, meanwhile, Payne finds some lyricism and irony in certain shots and compositions, but even in this regard, the movie feels undernourished as a cinematic adventure—nor does Downsizing thrive from the location shooting that hauntingly bolstered Nebraska. Matt Damon plays the leading character, Paul Safranek, effectively in his typical everyman mold, but while actress Hong Chau does a fine job when staying within herself, her performance glaringly falls apart when she attempts dramatic or comic monologues. As with the rest of the film, her attempt to combine drama and comedy clangs rather than meshes. In terms of creativity, Downsizing suggests that sometimes less is more. 

I might actually view the movie once more, just to follow some of the plot developments a little more closely and to give myself another chance for assessment—figuring out why a film falters can be a compelling intellectual exercise. But let me phrase matters this way: the trailer for Downsizing is much better than the actual movie.