I thought that this movie was fairly blah for the first 70 minutes or. A tale of an under-achiever finding a renewed life after his overly consumerist wife leave him penniless and alone. It had been done better and with more charm many times over the years.
In walks Dushan (Christopher Waltz's character), who starts to undermine both the plot and the "green" message of the movie. He "tells the truth" that Paul (Damon's character) is nice...but not that nice. That he's not at all about the environment, and in the end, he's unhappy not because of his wife or his situation, but his obsession with looking like a nice guy and making a difference.
I honestly didn't understand Ngoc Lan as a character until later on in the movie, and in the end its clear that she's the only truly selfless person there. She doesn't try to save the world, she doesn't try to make money, or be celebrated...she just helps people and goes on with her life. Unlike Paul or the scientists of the original colony, she doesn't do it because of moral superiority, but because its what she wants to do.
These concepts were brought to life by the introduction of the "original colony" first by the sex crazed "little Ronni" who is as self-destructive as any child star before him. And then by the both overly optimistic and pessimistic Jorgen Asbjørnsen and the rest of the colony who believe that the world cannot be saved and needs preserved by their insular community. Dushan (ever the opportunist) provides supplies and other goods to them, but has them pegged. "They're a cult" is probably the most telling line in the movie, and his assessment of the future destruction of the colony versus the overall fate of humanity is probably the single most accurate assessment of the average "green utopia" there is. In the end, people will be people, and they're just as likely to destroy themselves and the environment as the society they are leaving behind. It's like that Vegan person you know that's both proud of their choice and judgmental of yours without any care or realization as to what they're really accomplishing (if anything) or why.
In the end, I liked the choice that Paul made; he stopped padding himself on the back, or expecting praise for his actions. The final scene where he drops off food, and runs back out with only a slight look back to ensure that the person he helped was content (as opposed to seeking praise and thanks) was him coming full circle from helping out of obligation and expectation, to helping because it's what he wanted to do.
Its hard to rate the movie highly because so much of the plot is useless baggage. His wife leaving him, his odd date, his work at a call center; even the scenes with his mother...they were all needless fluff. How can you rate a movie highly when so much of it is just plain useless? It feels like there were several other potentially interesting narrative threads (like rights of downsized people, and a greater exploration of the abuses of the technology) which were never explored.
Because those plot threads were never explored, instead focusing exclusively on the environmental aspects; they could have started the movie right into his first day at Leisureland and explaining that his wife died due to complications of the downsizing process. I felt like the whole divorce angle was too rushed, and served no real purposed other than to impoverish him a little. It seemed like the biggest issue was loneliness rather than cash flow anyways. They could have told the backstory in 5 to 10 minutes of flashback interspersed into the narrative; and boom there's 30 minutes of your life back with a much more interesting story overall.
0 out of 0 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
Tell Your Friends