Alexander Payne's Movies Ranked From Worst To Best

7. Downsizing

So far the only film that Payne has ever made not to be totally acclaimed upon arrival. Downsizing was guilty of simply concentrating on the wrong aspects of the plot device and becoming too formulaic, which was strange because these things had never permeated Payne's films before.

When Matt Damon's Paul Safranek decides to shrink himself, like so many others are doing, in order to save the environment, his life falls apart and he winds up alone and living the same monotonous life that he already had been stuck in. The intimate character study of decision making and loneliness just kind of stops there and an end of the world plot takes over, which is hugely underwhelming.

In the end, it isn't that Downsizing is a bad film, it's that we expect so much more from Alexander Payne when he releases a feature.

The story had real promise too and marked a real detachment from his previous work. Payne's films usually find humour in the most uninteresting places and dull clichés of life, where this film had a sci-fi twist to it that may have given him a different angle to explore. Unfortunately, he didn't really do his usual brand of detailed character study which left the film wanting.