All those disparate elements fail to gel.

While Downsizing is not not about the end of human life on earth, it confronts the prospect with minimal sentiment, and uses it to ask questions about what the good life might consist of, here and now.

With his latest film, Alexander Payne finds himself teetering uncomfortably atop a high-concept device and wrestling with tonal clashes.

Strangely deviating from its own fascinating concept of small people, the second half of the film shouts bewildering environmental and political messages befitting more a climate or migration documentary.