Downsizing
Paramount Pictures | Release Date: December 22, 2017 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
64
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 48 Critic Reviews
Positive:
27
Mixed:
18
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Washington PostAnn HornadayDec 21, 2017
Weird and wonderful, zigging where it should zag and zagging where it should zig, this wildly imaginative flight of fancy strikes an admirably poised balance between whimsy, screwball comedy, social satire and generous meditation on the foibles and highest aspirations of human nature. Read full review
100
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyAug 30, 2017
Captivating, funny and possessed of a surprise-filled zig-zag structure that makes it impossible to anticipate where it's headed, this is a deeply humane film that, like the best Hollywood classics, feels both entirely of its moment and timeless. Read full review
100
The GuardianXan BrooksAug 30, 2017
A less polished director might have become lost and confused along the film’s lengthy running-time. But Payne’s handling is perfect. He never puts a foot wrong, rustling up a picture that is as bright as a button and as sharp as a tack. Read full review
90
VarietyOwen GleibermanAug 30, 2017
Downsizing is an ingenious comedy of scale, a touching tale of a man whose problems grow bigger as he gets smaller, and an earnest environmental parable. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversDec 19, 2017
Downsizing brims over with the pleasures of the unexpected, a hallmark of Payne's artistry. Read full review
85
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeAug 30, 2017
Downsizing sees Payne and Taylor working on a larger palette than usual, but like their shrunken characters, the filmmakers’ humor and their sharp observation of the human condition have survived the change in size and scope. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattDec 20, 2017
The result is a dadaist swirl of satire, pie-eyed whimsy, and speculative futurism — like "Gulliver’s Travels" through the wrong end of a telescope. Read full review
83
The PlaylistJessica KiangAug 30, 2017
Heady, bold statements about humankind are both the film’s best aspect and its chief flaw: There are just so many of them. Read full review
80
EmpireIan FreerJan 29, 2018
Payne’s lm is full of invention, wit, great scenes and big — if not fully realised — intentions. Downsizing may be about a small world, but it is an audacious, out-sized peach of a picture. Read full review
80
Total FilmJamie GrahamJan 22, 2018
No small achievement. Alexander Payne re-confirms his position as one of US cinema’s premier filmmakers. Read full review
80
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlDec 20, 2017
The film’s lead is far and away its least interesting character, and Damon dials back every watt of his charisma or wit. Read full review
80
CineVueJohn BleasdaleAug 30, 2017
This is Payne's most political film since Election and refreshingly eschews the gentle social realism of Sideways and Nebraska for something much more subversive. The pointillist normalcy of those films is used well as a context in which to embed the craziness of his Kaufmanesque high concept. Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinAug 30, 2017
“A person’s a person, no matter how small,” Dr. Seuss once memorably counselled – and that’s as good a binding philosophy as any for Alexander Payne’s exhilaratingly odd new film. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperDec 21, 2017
Damon is in prime everyman mode as Paul, a good guy with a good heart who wouldn’t mind catching a break, a big break, just once. Waltz has a blast playing the party king Dusan, who has some wise observations about the ways of this new world. And Hong Chau is brilliant as the fiery and funny and fantastically blunt Ngoc Lan. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzSep 9, 2017
One part relationship comedy, one part existential human drama, one part environmental warning and, regrettably, one part white-saviour myth, Alexander Payne’s Downsizing is a beautiful, confounding creation. Read full review
75
The Film StageRory O'ConnorSep 2, 2017
Downsizing is arguably the most flawed of Payne’s work, but despite its apocalyptic overtones, it’s also his most optimistic. The resulting emotional hit of Paul’s final actions — like that of Miles’, Woody’s, and Schmidt’s — is no less moving, either. Read full review
70
TimeStephanie ZacharekDec 22, 2017
The movie is a surprise, the good kind, an instance of a filmmaker zigging just when you’re expecting him to zag. Read full review
70
Paste MagazineTim GriersonDec 21, 2017
Although Downsizing is often thoughtful, funny and poignant, ultimately it really is just another movie about a middle-aged white dude pondering his insignificance—with the added demerit being that he learns valuable life lessons thanks to a marginalized woman of color. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzDec 21, 2017
Alexander Payne has a lot of fun — and has some serious things to say — in Downsizing, a film that goes from fascinating to sometimes merely functional, but never truly loses its way. Read full review
70
Screen DailyLee MarshallAug 30, 2017
There’s something for everyone in Downsizing - just not a full meal. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenDec 21, 2017
Dense with captivating ideas and visual feats, Downsizing is a packed offering whose oversized ambitions may outstrip its accomplishments. Read full review
67
The VergeTasha RobinsonSep 14, 2017
It’s frustratingly good at first, and then just frustrating, because it veers away from the things that make it unique, intelligent, and exciting. Read full review
67
IndieWireBen CrollAug 30, 2017
Downsizing is rife with witty visual touches and inspired comic premises but never quite comes together as fully successful whole. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliDec 22, 2017
The character arc of Paul Safranek (Matt Damon) lacks verve and, although some will appreciate the low-key denouement, the film as a whole exudes unfulfilled potential and the ending provokes little more than a shrug of the shoulders. Read full review
63
Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonDec 21, 2017
Although the sci-fi trappings of Downsizing make it seem like a big departure from Payne’s previous work — The Descendants, Sideways, About Schmidt — it is the same in important ways. It’s a movie about a man suddenly separated from people he’s loved, trying to learn how to live again. Read full review
63
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonDec 21, 2017
Working from a screenplay that he co-wrote with Jim Taylor, Payne delivers what must be his least funny film — if, indeed, his intention was to be funny. Read full review
63
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldDec 19, 2017
Perhaps Downsizing needed to be downsized a bit; as it is, it’s an intriguing concept that slips away. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawJan 26, 2018
This long film is blisteringly brilliant for the first hour or so. Then there are shark-jumping issues. Read full review
60
The New YorkerAnthony LaneDec 30, 2017
As for Paul, you can’t help feeling that, ground down as he was, he didn’t need to get shrunk in the first place. He needed a shrink. Read full review
60
VoxAlissa WilkinsonDec 21, 2017
The overstuffed Downsizing doesn’t totally work, but when it does, it’s fascinating. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangDec 21, 2017
It's hard not to appreciate the visual and thematic scope of "Downsizing's" reach. But it's harder not to see the chasm between its strange, misshapen story and the grand, towering vision to which it aspires. Read full review
60
The New York TimesA.O. ScottDec 21, 2017
Downsizing is an ambitious movie about the value of modesty, and its faults are proportionate to its insights. I sort of wish it felt like a bigger deal, but maybe that’s my problem. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)Emily YoshidaDec 19, 2017
I appreciate that Payne is more interested in blowing out a middle-class American perspective, and its perpetual victimhood narrative. But Damon is completely forgettable here — I suspect that’s by design, but nothing about him commands you watch him the way you watch Chau or Waltz. Read full review
58
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallDec 21, 2017
Alexander Payne has a great idea with Downsizing and doesn’t quite know what to do with it. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternDec 22, 2017
It’s a movie in which too-muchness ends up being not-enoughness, since the script lacks a vital center. But the premise remains appealing. If you have to travel by air, being 5 inches tall makes a seat in economy a throne. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerDec 22, 2017
Downsizing never quite goes where you think it’s going, and normally, I’d say that’s a plus. But confounding expectations only goes so far. You still have to get to a place worth getting to. Read full review
50
New York PostSara StewartDec 20, 2017
Squanders its big ideas in record time. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy BurrDec 20, 2017
The film’s ultimate message — help other people, basically — is, while useful and necessary, dramatically rather slack, and you notice with a shock that the film’s central conceit has almost entirely dropped off the table by the final third. Payne’s microcosm is so like our macrocosm that after a while he simply forgets to make the distinction. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreDec 19, 2017
Every scene — the pointed and the pointless — goes on too long. No character is wholly motivated or explained. Read full review
50
IGNWilliam BibbianiDec 19, 2017
It’s not very funny, it’s not very dramatic. There’s a spark of intelligence here, a valid critique of doomsday culture and escapism, but it’s the sort of message you can easily get off of a cocktail napkin. Read full review
50
ScreenCrushE. Oliver WhitneySep 13, 2017
Downsizing is all half-empty, big ideas that accomplish very little. Read full review
50
ConsequenceSarah KurchakSep 11, 2017
Payne’s heart might have been in the right place with this one, but the execution feels flippant at best. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Sep 7, 2017
Alexander Payne’s science-fiction comedy Downsizing is less a fully formed satire than a clever idea stuck in first draft and stretched uncomfortably to feature length. Read full review
40
The AtlanticDavid SimsDec 22, 2017
All of Downsizing’s story elements are so audacious that I was rooting for Payne to make some narrative sense of them. But in two hours and 15 minutes, the only insight the movie offers is that stagnation is part of existence, and that while we probably can’t stop the world from ending with unbelievable scientific breakthroughs, all that matters is that humans are there for each other. Read full review
40
Time OutJoshua RothkopfAug 31, 2017
As medium-grade satire (hardly another The Truman Show), Downsizing works fine enough. But it makes a series of wrong moves that throw off the delicate tone, raising the pretension levels to toxic. Read full review
38
RogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyDec 22, 2017
Alexander Payne's Downsizing starts with an intriguing "What if?...", the launch-pad of all good sci-fi stories, and very quickly devolves into a bland story about a nondescript khaki-wearing guy who learns to care about the less-fortunate. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineKeith UhlichSep 10, 2017
Alexander Payne's defenders might call his often acidic touch Swiftian, though it comes off more toothlessly noncommittal. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleDec 20, 2017
By the end, Downsizing is one of those great ideas that should have just stayed an idea. Read full review
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