Exciting start to Venice festival

VENICE - The 74th Venice film festival opened on Wednesday with Alexander Payne's sci-fi satire Downsizing in the opening slot that is increasingly coveted as a launchpad for the Oscars.

Starring Matt Damon and Kristen Wiig, Sideways director Payne's latest quirky creation is a tale of a lower middle-class couple in the US Midwest. But the new film's title is not a reference to job losses or selling off the family house. Instead the pair are considering signing up for radical new surgery that would help them become tiny versions of themselves, on the promise of a better life.

Written by Payne, a two-time Oscar winner for his screenplays, and Jim Taylor, the film will be seeking to emulate the success of La La Land, Birdman and Gravity - all Venice openers in recent years that went on to bag the Oscars and other prizes. Whether it does is likely to depend on how critics react to the film's intriguing plot, which Variety described as "Honey I Shrunk the Kids with a deeper social message".