The Incredible Shrinking Man

Jack Arnold, one of the great directors of 1950s sci-fi, temporarily sets aside his beloved desert backdrops to focus instead on the intimate drama of a single individual, an innocent victim of the whirlwind of reckless scientific progress characterizing contemporary society.

The protagonist’s incredible affliction is caused by a combination of factors (exposure to a radioactive cloud provokes a genetic mutation while pesticide exposure activates the shrinking process), allowing the director to touch on a decidedly broader range of societal concerns and anxieties than other cinematic productions of the time typically addressed (they generally limited themselves to a single, obsessive rant about the risks of nuclear power).

In Arnold’s works, numerous questions are raised, but the light of science shines rather feebly, incapable of shedding any true clarity in an unknown realm too deep and encompassing to be penetrated by reason alone. It’s no coincidence that the fideistic monologue at the end – conceived and written by the director himself – introduces a healthy dose of theological truisms that put Carey’s soul at ease.

Overall, “The Incredible Shrinking Man” is a visually and conceptually interesting film that stands out for its painstaking examination of the characters’ psychological dimension – the use of voiceover is particularly effective in communicating their angst and worries. Above all, the film uses the protagonist’s ongoing physical changes to focus on matters of identity (“What was I? Still a human being?“) and interpersonal relationships. In the latter instance, the burden of a marital relationship that’s become impossible to maintain is revealed through increasingly bitter and distraught statements such as: “You love Scott Carey. He has a size and a shape and a way of thinking. All that’s changing now“. Or, “I felt puny and absurd. A ludicrous midget […] I loathed myself. Our home, the caricature my life with Lou had become“.

Narratively, the film consists of two clearly delineated parts: The first breaks down the man’s disturbing symptoms and their consequences on the people they affect. In the second part, though, we witness a real battle for survival that takes on a purely Darwinian flavor.

Screenplay by Richard Matheson, based on his own 1956 novel, and produced with a generous budget by Universal Pictures.