Jack Arnold directed a number of great sci-fi films in his time. Among them are such 'fifties classics as It Came from Outer Space, Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Tarantula. His best, though, is the widely unrecognized The Incredible Shrinking Man. Shrinking Man takes the simplest of sci-fi concepts and examines it on a philosophical basis, turning it into a work of romanticist art. The film succeeds because it is focused not on the events within it but on the way they impact the main character, a man who is forced to confront a drastic physical change with little hope of overcoming it. This is a movie about the dangers of identifying oneself outwardly and the empowerment that comes with self-acceptance.

A man named Robert Scott Carey encounters a sparkling, radioactive cloud while lounging on a boat with his wife. Soon after, he notices his clothes are fitting slightly loose. After noticing a drop in his weight and height, followed by some insufficient explanations from his wife and doctor, Carey realizes, to his dismay, that he is shrinking. He lives in depression, ashamed of his size, and eventually becomes so small that his cat poses an immediate danger, viewing him as prey. One day when the cat is accidentally let inside, it begins chasing him, and his only refuge is the basement. Now, totally lost to his wife and unable to climb the steps to the basement door, Carey must survive in a land that, to him, is totally barren, offering an old piece of cake as its only source of nourishment -- if he can get to it.

The film is split into two halves: Carey's physical and emotional descent, and his fight for survival in the basement. The first of these portions of the film sees him decline from a confident, dominant male asserting his dominance (or trying to, anyway) by ordering his wife to fetch him beer with a mere "I'm thirsty," into a man so ashamed of himself that even such things as his wife telling him she's going to the store cause him to respond in the most defensive manner. While this half works functionally to tear Carey down so as to set him up for human triumph in the second half, it also is important in and of itself. This part of the film is a depiction of the dangers of prizing one's masculinity. As Carey begins noticeably shrinking, he attempts to assert his masculinity more and more, desperately clinging to that aspect of himself even as it drifts away with his size. When his wife has trouble getting an unlisted phone number for their house, he says, ironically but seriously, "Use your influence, Louise. I'm a big man, I'm famous!" He has resorted to the very thing that he despises so much about himself in order to cling to power. Carey is so reliant on his identity as a dominant male that he fights to retain it even though there is nothing he can do to stop it from fading away.

He continues hoping desperately to regain his masculinity even as his situation deteriorates into the ultimate humiliation: living in a dollhouse. He begins despising himself even more, not just for his size but for his actions, and eventually becomes suicidal. He says, via narration, "Every day I became more tyrannical, more monstrous in my domination of Louise. Heaven knows how she lived through those weeks. Only I had the power to release it, if I could find the courage to end my wretched existence. But each day I thought, Perhaps tomorrow. Tomorrow the doctors will save me." Carey's downfall was his defining of himself outwardly when he should have been focused on who he inwardly is. Therefore, he remained unable to accept his new form because to him it effected a core change to his identity.

When Carey finds himself struggling to survive in the basement wasteland, however, his outlook on the world and himself changes drastically. This is a place he can conquer. He becomes infused with power -- not a masculine, assertive power but a power of will. In this environment, he comes to understand the world as it is -- a place in which not to romp about proudly but to survive with modest integrity. The basement presents him with one goal and one foe: the piece of cake and a tarantula, an terror of prehistoric proportions that happens to reside directly above the cake. While he attempts to reach the cake and defeat the spider in the wild of the basement, Carey exhibits more potency and capability than he ever did as a normal-sized man. Through this experience, he learns that virtue lies not in physical and social influence but in a much more universally applicable quality: willpower.

By overcoming adversity in an altered physical environment, Carey proves himself capable of overcoming not only physical obstacles but bigger ones, such as doubt, despair, and fear. When he does so, his masculinity returns, proving unbound by size, and he is forced to understand himself purely on the terms of fortitude and spirit -- his inner qualities. This is the key to his eventual triumph.

Carey's story comes to a close in a brief segment following a final encounter with the spider and is the best ending the movie could possibly have had. Neither happy nor said, the ending to this film is something much better: satisfying. I will not spoil the ending, but in it, Carey achieves an enlightened understanding of the universe. His plight has taught him the triviality of physical power and the importance of willpower. It is the latter that defines us and that will pull us through the toughest situations, regardless of how big or small we are. It is an understanding that a perpetually shrinking man is best equipped to come to, but it is one that is perfectly clear to anyone after watching Carey overcome the obstacles he faces.

Whereas Arnold's other science fiction films are smart and fun, The Incredible Shrinking Man is brilliant. It is purely romantic and transcendental, realizing that the core strength of man is a power that transcends physicality. Its premise is the perfect vehicle to arrive at such an understanding, its plot is constructed so as to examine this idea from opposing angles, and its character-based style of storytelling elevates it beyond cheesy sci-fi adventure. This is not only Arnold's best sci-fi film. This is one of the best sci-fi films of the 1950s, period.