On Demand Free Movies: The Incredible Shrinking Woman
This is the next installment in my "free movies" critiques.
Oh the absurdity! What appeared on the surface to be a good-natured, very 1980's movie about the dangers of consumption turns into a buddy movie between a three-inch tall woman and a man in an ape suit.
The plot? A woman, Pat Kramer (Lily Tomlin), who is married to an advertiser, has all kinds of strange new (aka untested) products in her home for advertising research. She comes into contact with a strange combination of said products and begins to shrink uncontrollably. The movie never delves into the evils of consumerism or advertising, for all of its lame attempts at trying to lambast them. It seems to want to say that advertising is evil, that it will get us to buy anything, but in reality its the products that are toxic, and advertising is let off the hook. The film can't quite get up the guts to say that advertising can affect the way we think, feel, and buy. It never even really criticizes the products; instead it deals with them in more of an 'oh well, that's too bad' sort of way. The opportunity to make a statement completely gets lost in this film, even though it seems to teeter on the verge of a desire to do so.
The main bad guys in the film are part of some covert organization called The Society for World Domination (or something else like that.) They want to use the properties of Pat Kramer's blood to shrink the entire population so that they will achieve world domination! How sinister. They capture the 'incredible shrinking woman', put her in a lab across from a caged man in a gorilla suit named Sydney, and madness ensues. Of course she escapes and becomes normal sized again, but not until she gets the chance to lecture the good citizens of Tasty Meadows about the need to love others.
What about Pat's family, you might ask? The non-English speaking housekeeper seems to do a pretty good job with the kids, and Dad's biggest problem is his newfound lack of sex life. Once she begins shrinking, her husband is seen reading a book titled 'The Sexless Marriage', because naturally that's the biggest problem with a wife that shrinks - no sex. Nevermind how she might feel, shrinking. Pat is always a good sport, happy, putting on a brave face even when she's put into a hamster's cage. Talk about the woman, the mother, being a martyr. Her job is to please and to take care of others, and once she shrinks, she is basically worthless and is easily replaced. Heck, the movie could've even taken a different route and explored how women often 'dissapear' from the public sphere (hence so many female superheroes have the superpower of invisibility, IMHO.) She literally loses herself, literally shrinking. Oddly enough, her shrinking gains her favor with the world. As she sacrifices herself, people notice the cute, good natured, little woman. I wonder how the public would've reacted if she wasn't such an endearing and cute little person, embodying the characteristics of a devoted wife and mother. Is the film an analogy of the far-reaching effects of womanly love and sacrifice? Nope, that's way too deep for a movie with a man in a gorilla suit. Again, the opportunity to create meaning completely missed.
Verdict? Skip it. This morning I was about 3/4 of the way through my body works class before I even remembered that I'd watched it last night. That makes it pretty forgettable in my book. And some of you might say, well Mary, you expect way too much out of your movies! And I would say, yes, well, if they act like they want to say something, and have the opportunity to say something, then they probably should!
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