The Shrinking Man: the winning reunion of Dujardin and Kounen (review)

Eighteen years after 99 francs, they signed a sensory remake of the B series by Jack Arnold. A great film about death, both technical prowess and intimate meditation.

We could stop at the techno challenge recounted in the new issue of Première (on newsstands Wednesday): the motion control plans, the giant reworked sets, these materials reinvented so that a drop of water or a match finds a credible scale. The shrinking man version Jan Kounen / Jean Dujardin could have been nothing more than a visual high-wire act. But behind the revolution lies a great poetic and spiritual film: a strange and moving attempt to tell the story of how a man withdraws from the world to better accept his disappearance.

Kounen takes the radical step of never leaving the hero’s point of view. And he draws the story towards his illuminated, ultra-sensory cinema: long, muffled shots, inhabited silences, amplified gestures. What was an epic for Arnold becomes a more intimate journey: a staircase, a match or a simple leak of water are enough to measure the weakness and fragility of man.

Faced with this device, Dujardin delivers one of his greatest recent performances. Almost mute, beautiful as ever and alone on stage, he plays with his breath, his fatigue, his tremors. He transforms survival into physical prowess and an existential melodrama: husband, father, ordinary man, he learns to detach himself. There is some Buster Keaton in this character who runs towards his loss and his rebirth.

While remaining faithful to the spirit of the classic, this remake moves from postapo fable to meditation for the end of times. This is the meaning of the most beautiful shot in the film, the fragile appearance of a butterfly which replaces Arnold’s cosmic voice. Everything is condensed there: melancholic beauty, acceptance, and luminous reflection on death. Behind the technical feat reveals a great film which reminds us that accepting the end is still a way of living.

By Jan Kounen. With Jean Dujardin, Marie-Josée Croze. Duration: 1h50. Released October 22, 2025