I’m not sure I have the vocabulary to properly discuss The Incredible Shrinking Woman. It’s an experience–Ned Beatty was in Network and he appeared in this one? Sorry. Anyway, according the IMDb, the movie might have made money–in fact, it might have even been a hit. I always assumed it was an enormous failure, but if it was a success… well, first, I’m very confused. Second–there is no second. I’m still perplexed by the idea The Incredible Shrinking Woman was a hit.

Apparently, there were some really bad comedies in the late 1970s and early 1980s and Shrinking Woman is one of them. It’s a gimmick comedy, but the idea of Lily Tomlin shrinking isn’t even the gimmick–her adventures at one foot tall are pretty tame–wow, a talk show. Instead, the gimmick is Lily Tomlin appearing in multiple roles. Besides the main character, she also plays the main character’s best friend. Or the neighbor lady who annoys her until she’s shrinking, then she relies on. The movie doesn’t really have character relationships–much less development–so you have to kind of guess what it’s trying to say.

But Tomlin’s bored with her roles. She’s visibly phoning in her performance on both of them, obtuse to the goings on–it’d be hard for her to be engaged with the material, but still… she’s sleepwalking through her own vanity project.

The script’s atrocious. I don’t think it got a single laugh out of me, only because it’s condemning materialistic American culture–but it’s doing so by making everyone emotionally removed. It’s impossible to care about the characters, much less their problems. They don’t even have real problems, because Beatty and John Glover aren’t just regular businessmen, they’re about to take over the world. It’s absurdist humor without much humor.

Glover mugs through his performance, which means he doesn’t appear to be exerting or embarrassing himself. Beatty doesn’t get away clean though. His character is terribly written and he’s in it a lot.

Charles Grodin plays Tomlin’s husband and his part in the narrative is one of the bigger defects. He kind of becomes the protagonist for a while, but not long enough for it to matter, which means it was all a waste of time–and Shrinking Woman is a less than ninety-minute movie. If it has to tread water to make its running time, there’s something wrong.

Joel Schumacher–making his theatrical, directorial debut–has a few good shots. It’s pretty bland, but the sets look cheap and unfinished, so what was he going to do. He starts it–relatively–strong; I was surprised when the mediocrity set in.

I’d heard of Shrinking Woman many, many years ago. Maybe even when I was a kid–probably then, because I still would have wanted to see it because of the title. Bad idea.