Matt Damon shrinks down to 2 inches so he can live more luxuriously on a small budget in new film

It co-stars Kristen Wiig, Christoph Waltz and Alec Baldwin and comes from the director of The Descendants

N.B. This is a bad Photoshop, not a still from the film

With films like The Descendants and Nebraska, director Alexander Payne has specialised in humble, human stories.

His next movie, Downsizing, is an entirely different prospect. Here’s the synopsis (as per Variety):

'The film finds Damon and Kristen Wiig playing a lower middle class couple who buy into a plan to shrink themselves to the size of a Saltine cracker. It’s all part of a radical new surgery cooked up by a Norwegian scientist (presumably played by Christoph Waltz) to conserve resources and make people live luxuriously on a budget. With their $150,000 in savings, Damon and Wiig are told they can become suburban barons, if only they undergo the radical procedure.'

The sci-fi comedy, which also stars Christoph Waltz and Alec Baldwin, sounds like a more satirical version of Honey I Shrunk the Kids, offering a very sideways look at the world’s overconsumption/scarcity of resources problem.

Paramount Pictures showed 10 minutes of footage from it at CinemaCon on Tuesday, seeing a pint-size salesman played by Neil Patrick Harris selling the idea to potential customers. He is joined in the pitch by a tiny Laura Dern, who shows off the benefits of being small - sipping champagne in a bubble bath, wearing a string of pearls and waxing lyrical about her days spent playing tennis and getting massages.

Damon’s character’s operation was also shown, the man being shaved all over before being “drained”.

Downsizing apparently sees Payne working with a bigger budget than usual, and the film’s 22 December 2017 release date positions it nicely for award season. With laughs but also a timely message about the way we live, I could see it grabbing Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy at the Globes.