THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING WOMAN

US, 1981,88 minutes, Colour.
Lily Tomlin, Charles Grodin, Ned Beatty, Henry Gibson, Elizabeth Wilson, Pamela Bellwood, John Glover.
Directed by Joel Schumacher.

Critics were generally unkind - perhaps expecting Lily Tomlin, whose comic talents they highly praise, to appear only in masterpieces. on a modest level and aiming at a wide audience, this is a pleasingly entertaining film. From the credits, there is a great deal of satire on advertising and consumerism, much of it clever. It leads into Lily's shrinking and the film's focus on her plight, her family, Henry Gibson as a mad scientist and a dastardly plot to control the Earth (and a King Kong parody with an ape called Sidney). Lily Tomlin plays two roles (and is glimpsed in two others) and seem to enjoy herself. And why not? The film traces its origins to Jack Arnold's The Incredible Shrinking Man, a science fiction feature of 1957, written by Richard Matheson (author of so many Poe adaptations, horror stories and horror telemovies). The film has some similarities but this is definitely parody and satire.

1. The film as a star vehicle for Lily Tomlin? her presence, comedy style, impersonation, satire on American types? The three characters portrayed in this film?

2. The relationship with Richard Matheson's original story? Its place as a science fiction classic? Its serious and nightmare overtones? Picture of society and its victims? The struggle of the individual? The terror of his becoming smaller in a menacing world? Special effects? How well does this basic story lend itself to parody? Some critics said a travesty of the original - is this just? Or is the present kind of parody legitimate, even though based on a respected classic?

3. The use of the original plot and its adaptation to 1980? The individual as victim of the commercial world, media, power and greed for power, the corrosion of the human condition by science and chemical experiment? The comedy fable as a vehicle for irony?

4. The introductory credits and the showing of the American way of life as dictated by television and commercials? The humour and parody of commercials? Vance and his work in advertising and his dedication to it? his serious approach to his jungles? The saleswoman and her pressurising of Pat? Family life as ruled by commercials and products? The conspiracy of the advertising world, scientists? Pat as victim of this kind of world? How well satirised by the final jingle song? the effectiveness of this broad parody?

5. Pat as the American housewife? Lily Tomlin capturing the ordinariness, naivety, shrewdness, pressures of the American housewife? Seeing her shopping, driving, the kids and their arguing, preparing the home for Vance? The attention to home detail? Judith Beasley and her haranguing of Pat? The build-up to the accident, the shrinking and the film's eye for detail and use of special effects? Pat's trying to cope with the family? With the maid? The pets? Her living in the doll's house? how is the film showing the reduction of the individual in the commercial contemporary world?

6. The family representing American types?

7. The world of advertising and Dan Beame? His control, double talk? His pressures on Pat especially in not giving the company a bad name, especially in her television talk back?

8. The sinister world of Dr. Nortz and Dr. Ezuth? Their initial testing of Pat? The revelation of mad scientists and] their conspiracy? The detail of their laboratories? Serums for a power elite? The satire on megalomania.

9 Pat and her being victimised? The overtones of the horror science fiction story? Frankenstein, etc?

10. Sidney and the farce, the humorous parody of King Kong? Sidney as a gentle ape?

11. The culmination and Pat's disappearance? The feelings of pathos in the audience as she disappeared? The success of her return to normality?

12. The humour of her being normal - but growing?

13. To whom was the film geared? The broad popular audience? The effectiveness of the film as a popular story, a poke at consumers and their gullibility? The serious feminist overtones - the ordinary woman and her being victimised, the possibility of her integrity and aims for world peace? The place of the symbolic 'the little woman'?