Alexander Payne's DOWNSIZING proves so much more than its cute trailer might suggest

Sure, its trailer makes DOWNSIZING -- the new film from Alexander Payne that he directed (and co-wrote with Jim Taylor) -- look pretty funny and adorable. But it barely gives a clue to what this unusual and surprisingly thoughtful and heartfelt movie actually delivers. Which may be one reason that it is not drawing the expected crowds the way that a funny sci-fi movie might. The other reason, on which TrustMovies would just about stake his life, is its distributor, Paramount Pictures, which, along with Warner Brothers has historically had little idea of how to handle any out-of-the-ordinary movie. (Both studios started up and then folded their independent/art-film arms some years back.)

To my knowledge, the filmmaker (shown at left) has never made even a mainstream movie (nor anything close to a blockbuster), but that movie trailer seems determined to turn this film into one, come what may. The result so far is a major box-office disappointment, but I suspect that the movie itself will outlast its detractors and find its way into "classic" status, if the world as we know it should even last long enough for that.

Among the quite wonderful things about Downsizing -- for anyone who has not seen that trailer or read even one review of the film -- is how it takes its very original and fun/funny premise and examines it from so very many perspectives: cultural, economic, political, social, human and humane. The movie is consistently not just interesting but invigorating because Payne and Taylor refuse to simply hand us something clever and funny and then coast along on those.

That the film is so full of intelligence and fun is one thing, but Payne's use of big-time actors in so many small roles is also a delight. From Niecy Nash (two photos below) to Laura Dern,(above), Neil Patrick Harris (below),  James Van Der Beek and Margo Martindale (who doesn't even rate a close-up!) and so many others, the movie's a non-stop parade of smart actors who do exactly what's required of them while adding some amusing "star power" to the proceedings.

When around midway the film slowly morphs into something else, because that something else is so urgent (in terms of theme) and "felt" (in how the filmmakers and their cast present it), Downsizing turns into an extraordinarily humane and important endeavor -- while still offering up enough intelligence and grace to hold any audience left in America that possesses both a mind and a heart. (I know, I know: They're few and far between these days.)

As Payne's leading man, Matt Damon (below, left) shows us once again why he is becoming a near-perfect American "everyman." He was a nasty one in Surburbicon (another under-performing but better-than-you've heard movie), and he 's an equally fine one in this film, as he captures everything from the kindness and caring to the fear and doubt that currently besets so many of us in the western world.

Kristin Wiig (above, right) is just right as his wife, Audrey, but even better is an actress new to me named Hong Chau (below, left), who plays a Vietnamese woman who Damon's character tries to help. Ms Chau is revelatory. But then so is this entire movie.

A word must be said, too, for that amazing actor and Oscar winner, Christoph Waltz, below, who seems to grow better with every screen appearance. He's a character actor non-pareil, and he outdoes himself here -- yes, again.

I don't want to go into any more detail because you deserve to experience the fun and surprise of Downsizing on your own. In a year of so many very fine films, this one is another -- and one of the best. From, as I said, Paramount Pictures, the movie is playing just about everywhere. Click here to find the theater(s) nearest you.

Agnès Varda's back, with JR in tow and maybe her most delightful doc yet: FACES PLACES

She is not only one of France's most sublime national treasures, but that of cinema, too, and her worth simply grows from film to film. Agnès Varda's latest -- and perhaps her last (she turns 90 next May, and both her general strength and eyesight seem to be slowly failing) -- turns out to be a lovely collaboration with a photographer and muralist who goes by the name of JR. (His moniker is not a nod to Dallas, I am guessing).

The collaboration turns out to be a near-perfect one, with the pair complementing and setting each other off in the most wonderful of ways. He (shown at left) is tall; she's short. She (shown below) is old; he's young. He is hugely private, never removing his dark glasses, while she could hardly be more transparent. And they're both so full of talent and creative juice that spending 90 minutes with them will seem as though you've died and gone directly to art/cinema/ photography/mural

heaven. Not to mention all the lovely people and animals you'll meet along the way. I don't think you will even need to have viewed other Varda pix to fully appreciate this one, for it bubbles along with such life, energy and good will that it rather dares you not to immediately fall in love with it, its creators and all the folk you meet within. (If you're new to Varda, I would suggest Cleo from 5 to 7 and The Gleaners and I for starters.) The more you've already seen of her films, however, the more you will understand and appreciate why this one seems maybe the culmination of all she has accomplished.

How does she do it, one wonders? By "it," I mean the ease by which she manages to connect all these people and the "art" they contribute here by simply allowing themselves to be filmed and photographed -- JR's amazing enlargements of the photos then being glued to their local buildings -- as well as by speaking with the filmmakers and sharing bits of their lives. All this coalesces into something simple and very pleasurable yet also somehow rich and profoundly humane.

As one of the interviewees mentions en route, "Art is supposed to surprise us, right?" Absolutely. Hence the surprise and delight we take in meeting everyone from the woman, above, who refuses to move out of her "condemned" row of old houses formerly occupied by French miners (she was a miner's wife)

to the flock of goats we meet, along with the folk who raise them. Some goats no longer have horns; the how and why of this is explored quite interestingly, with no judgment made but nonetheless giving us the information we need to make our own.

Then there are the wives of the dockworkers whom we meet and get to know just a bit, before their images (at left) are attached to the huge containers that the workers must fill and empty. We go from towns to countryside to the Louvre (through which JR pushes Varda in her wheelchair, as an homage to Godard's running-through-the-Louvre scene in Bande à part.

She still rather worships Godard (foolishly, in my estimation, for she is twice the filmmaker that this over-rated, misogynistic pretension-artist usually is). Varda and JR go to Godard's "new house" for breakfast, and his response should not surprise anyone who follows the man's films.

Among some genuinely precious moments here are a look at a town's "bell ringer," the worker in a salt factory who tries to keep the place "accident-free," and the dear old (and now deceased) friend of Varda, Guy Bourdin, whom we see as a young man who was Varda's model. How Bourdin's youth becomes very briefly immortalized, below, is wonderful, strange and sad.

The final gift that these filmmakers offer each other at film's end is so take-your-breath-away perfect that Faces Places (Visages, villages in the original French) immediately becomes a movie that, like all of Varda's work, you'll want and need to view again.

From Cohen Media Group and running just 90 minutes, opens theatrically this Friday, October 6, in New York City at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema, and on October 13 in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Playhouse 7 and Royal theaters. Elsewhere. Yes, nationwide, in limited release, but I have not found a link to the list of theaters, as yet....