Elizabeth Banks has been married long enough to know that the same argument can return in different clothes.
In The Miniature Wife, she plays Lindy, a writer whose life is upended when a scientific accident shrinks her to six inches tall. Her husband, Les, played by Matthew Macfadyen, is partly responsible. Their marriage already has its old pressure points. Once Lindy is tiny, every one of them becomes harder to ignore.
“I’m long married myself, and I felt like it was a really cool way to talk about all of those dynamics,” Banks tells The National.
“I thought it was such a fun metaphor for power dynamics. And for being made to feel small, not just in a romantic relationship, but for my character, throughout her life.
“She feels very small and unseen and unheard because she’s not writing, and she has an icy mother who she wrote a wicked memoir about. As it unfolds, you see this couple has really had to stay together through thick and thin and be each other’s person, because they don’t have a lot of other people that get them.”
Macfadyen points to Why You Will Always Marry the Wrong Person, the book by Alain de Botton.
“It’s very comforting, because, of course, you always will marry the wrong person,” he says. “But it’s the journey.”
Banks adds: “You have to get right with it, even if they're the wrong one.”
Based on Manuel Gonzales’s short story, The Miniature Wife follows Lindy and Les after one of his experiments changes the scale of their life together. Like Honey I Shrunk the Kids nearly four decades ago, life becomes dangerous. Ordinary objects become obstacles.
What makes it stand out, however, is how it works as a metaphor for their relationship dynamic. A marriage that was already under strain suddenly has to become practical. Who carries whom? Who decides what is safe? Who has the power when one person can pick the other up?
For Banks and Macfadyen, the strange premise only works if the marriage underneath it feels recognisable. Lindy and Les still love each other. They also know exactly how to manipulate each other.
“I think we decided quite early on not to be afraid to lean into the unsympathetic side of the adversarial,” Macfadyen says. “Especially with a couple who have been together for many, many years and have a sort of familiarity bordering on contempt.”
“We know each other’s buttons,” Banks says.
For each of them, exploring that aspect became the truth buried in the fantastical science fiction of it all. Suddenly, it's not a '90s Disney movie. Instead, it's Anatomy of a Fall.
“I love that moment in the big row at the beginning where you say, ‘And it’s the same. Every time we fight,’” Macfadyen says. “Couples have the same row.”
“We see why as the story develops,” says Banks. “This show works on so many levels, because this couple has a present crisis of me being shrunk that needs to be dealt with. But we also get to see through flashback all the way back to the beginnings, when this couple was first falling in love and getting married.
“They’ve become separated, isolated, doing it on their own. Really this is about working together, bringing them together. That’s what we relied on, knowing the audience was going to be on a long journey – 10 episodes. Even though we’re fighting a lot, you’ve got to trust us. We love each other.”
The flawed nature of their relationship also brings out the best in them, Banks feels. That's part of what interests her – exploring the idea that messy relationships have value too.
“My hope is that the audience sees us enjoying the competition,” she says. “Sees us wanting to one-up each other, because it brings out the best in each other. I think this is a couple that kind of gets off on doing this to each other.
“It’s what I like the most about him, that he’s going to hold me to a higher standard and push me to do things I wouldn’t normally do. I think that’s actually a very exciting undercurrent in their relationship.”
If their toxicity makes them unlikeable, then so be it, in Macfadyen's view. That's also the stuff that makes them real. Coming off Succession, a series full of awful people, which also reignited his career,, he feels emboldened to push things as far as possible in that direction.
“I never really understand. You hear some actors who really don’t want to appear to be unsympathetic,” he says. “The whole point of being an actor is to serve the story and be a psychopath or be flawed, be human.”
Banks, meanwhile, has spent much of her career chasing comedy that mines a high-concept joke to find something that can carry weight. Similar dynamics were found in her early acting work in Wet Hot American Summer and The 40 Year Old Virgin, and in her work as a successful director as well.
“I really only make one kind of movie, and it is a comedy with a diverse cast,” she says. “Then I just hide it in other genres. With Pitch Perfect, I made a comedy inside of a musical, and then with Charlie’s Angels, I made a comedy inside of an action movie. With Crazy Bear, I made a comedy inside of a horror movie.
“I am still really drawn to things that are just really entertaining. I think my sensibility is I want to make people laugh. I want to take the audience on a bit of a ride.”
But decades into her career, she's willing to lean into the comedy with a different sort of confidence. She still wants to take them on a ride, sure, but that ride can be a bit bumpier than they may expect.
“When you start out, you have impostor syndrome, and you have a lot of insecurity about belonging,” she says. “I don’t have any of that any more, because I’m an old lady in the business who absolutely is sure that I know what I’m doing.
“When I am on a set, I’m like one of the elders these days. It’s actually a great feeling to understand, especially now that I’ve been a writer, producer, director, to really understand holistically what goes into making something. I think it is a real gift as a performer. It just means I’m a better collaborator across the board.”
While other comedic filmmakers often end up making horror films once they cross that threshold, such as Jordan Peele (Get Out) or Zach Cregger (Weapons), Banks will always reach for a laugh first.
“Comedy is the hardest, and I like a challenge,” she says. “It’s really hard to sustainably make people laugh, and it’s also very addicting. I don’t foresee making things that don’t involve some level of humour.”
The Miniature Wife is now streaming on Tod in the Middle East
