The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1981)

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Joel Schumacher's first feature film, The Incredible Shrinking Woman is very much a comedy remake of the The Incredible Shrinking Man, with Lily Tomlin a housewife similarly fogged, this time by household products, and carrying on cooking for the family, etc. despite her small size, until she is similarly thought dead. It is a very weird film, predicting Batman Forever more than it does, say, Falling Down, but it doesn't always justify its flights of bonkers. Tomlin playing several parts, for example, has no purpose AND kind of makes the ending confusing for a second. The existential climax only happens because it's harking back to the original film, but is nonsense in this new context. And that context is the inclusion of Big Business as a villain who doesn't want confidence in American products to take a dive because of what happened to her, dovetailing into an ill-justified supervillain scheme that replaces the basement survival story and gives Tomlin a super-intelligent gorilla as an ally. The original film was absurd, but this remake is simply cartoony. Not without interest, and the giant props are certainly well done, but nowhere near as resonant. 1 year 2 months ago