What’s your greatest wish? Would you like to be rich, tall, famous? Married to a handsome prince? Living in a world where Brexit is but a dream? Or maybe you’d like to be shrunk to the size of mouse and live in luxury in an idyllic community of other tiny humans, potentially saving the planet in the process?
Matt Damon and Kristen Wiig opt for the latter in Alexander Payne’s inventive new satire Downsizing. They’re the latest in a long line of movie characters to explore the idea of wishes coming true: children, magically, instantly becoming adults in Big and 13 Going On 30, while the reverse occured in 17 Again, as then 37-year-old Matthew Perry became his younger self (Zac Efron).
Body-swapping comedies like Freaky Friday and Vice Versa have spelled double trouble for age-change wishers, while dreams have been granted in Bedazzled, Ted, and many fairytale adaptations such as Cinderella.
It’s an age-old fantasy that’s instantly engaging, putting us in the place of the protagonist and allowing us to live vicariously through their adventure – all from the safety of the cinema or living room.
And many of these films seem to have popped up in the 1980s. Taking a leaf out of Pygmalion’s book, an “ideal” woman was created in Weird Science, starring Kelly LeBrock. Meanwhile in Mannequin, Andrew McCarthy was thrilled when his favourite shop window dummy turned into Kim Cattrall. Slightly creepy, in retrospect, but undeniably entertaining at the time.
So why did Hollywood turn to the wish fulfilment genre in that decade in particular? “The 80s was a time of unprecedented democratisation – we all bought into the seductive idea that it didn’t matter who you were, the world was your oyster, there for the taking if you were bold enough,” says Dr Hamira Riaz, a chartered clinical psychologist. “The barrow boy who became a millionaire stock broker was the poster child for the free-for-all energy of a decade all about individual achievement.”
Kim Stephenson, financial psychologist and the author of Finance is Personal, agrees. “You had the economy booming, all things were possible if you believed enough. So why shouldn’t you become a princess? Who was going to stop you?” he says.
If Downsizing signifies a resurgence of wish-fulfilment films, the question is: why now? Millennials may have the answer – and they are asking more questions than ever before. “Millennials rightly feel they have inherited a very different world to that bequeathed to their parents by their grandparents,” Riaz says. “There is growing collective angst about the way society is organised and the attendant concern that, as a species, we are behaving in ways that the planet cannot sustain. In that context, wish fulfilment movies can be pure escapism but they can also tap into a desire we all have to take more personal risk and envisage ways of reinventing ourselves while we still can.”
In Downsizing, Damon’s character, Paul Safranek, re-evaluates his notion of happiness after he’s had his wish granted – something that’s quite common, according to Stephenson.
“Most of us change our ideas of what makes us happy as time goes on. We tend to start with ‘pleasure’ (sex and drugs and rock’n’roll), and big adrenaline hits (big deals at work, big purchases) and find that they don’t last,” he says. “And we find happiness in less surface things. Although many never discover that!”
There are chemical reasons for this, too, says Loretta Breuning, the founder of the Inner Mammal Institute and author of Habits of a Happy Brain. “Our happy chemicals are triggered when we meet a need, but our brain quickly habituates to what it has,” she says. “If you invest all of your energy in one goal, and then achieve it, it stops feeling rewarding, so you are motivated to shift your energy toward an unmet need because that stimulates your happy chemicals.”
Downsizing also explores the idea of living in the moment, so it’s no wonder it resonates in the current cultural climate. “There’s a vogue for mindfulness,” says Stephenson. “If a film can make people think about living now, appreciating things, spreading those happy feelings, it not only makes one happier, it makes the world, in a small way, a better place. And films can do that.”
Many comical wish-fulfilment movies end with a return to the original status quo, thus comforting the armchair viewer and giving them a renewed appreciation for their own everyday life. But some, like Downsizing, dig deeper, asking if altruism is the key. Stephenson’s research suggests that this may be the answer in real life.
“Many lottery winners who give most of the money to charity appear to be happy years later, whereas the people who spend recklessly or hoard the money tend to be miserable,” he says. “You might be the richest person in the graveyard, but you won’t be happy.”
So, if the experts are to be believed, wish-fulfilment movies aren’t just entertainment – they may also have the power to change your personal perspective. Stephenson believes we can all learn from the genre, especially from his all-time favourite film. “If you spend money on others, if you use it to make the world a better place, or share it, then you end up like James Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life,” he says. “You’ll be the richest man in town”.
Downsizing is out in cinemas on the following dates: 22 December (Spain), 26 December (Australia), 10 January (France), 18 January (Germany), 25 January (Italy), 26 January (UK).
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