Up in the Air (2009)

Review:

Jason Reitman’s “Up in the Air” has been described as a story for today, a meditation on loneliness, and a dissertation on how globalization has at once made the world smaller and much larger. My dad thought the movie was about rejection. I thought the movie was about settling for less. Some see it as a film about careers; others see it as a film about opportunity. All these assessments are true and work in accord with one another, making a surprisingly potent film. Such is the wonder of Reitman’s third feature picture.

George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a self described “Termination Facilitator.” Companies hire him to come and lay off their employees in a time of downsizing. Bingham spends a vast majority of his year flying from city to city, staying in a new hotel each night. Along the way he meets the sexy Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga), another professional traveler who also shares a love for life on the road. They hook up and soon after whip out their computers to find when they’ll be in the same town again.

Matters are complicated when Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick), a recent college graduate, comes to Bingham’s company and introduces the practice of firing people over the web. Feeling his road warrior lifestyle is threatened Bingham takes Keener on the road to show her the ropes of their field. Anna Kendrick, most notably having played Jessica in the “Twilight Saga” shines like a true star in this film. She has a meltdown in a hotel lobby that is comedic gold.

As can be expected, George Clooney plays Bingham with that confidence so customary to a George Clooney role - and yet, this time his confidence is severely challenged. He plays a man that must face times that are changing faster than he is willing to change himself.

“Up in the Air” is all inclusive concerning the facets of how we live today. It ranges in topic from our post 9/11 insecurities to the inner depths of unemployment and ultimately to the incontrovertible fact that we die alone. This film is not a comedy, though it has several laughs. It is a consideration of what we need to live happily and how hard those things are to obtain.

Rating:

On a scale of one to Casablanca, this film is a “Fargo” (1996).


Rationalization:

I entered the movie theater expecting to have an uplifting comedy that would reassure me everything would be ok. As it turns out, “Up in the Air” is not that movie, and consequently, I left the theater feeling sucker punched in the jaw. Not a hard sucker punch, but one I wasn’t expecting. In fact, I would go so far as to say I was feeling blue after seeing this movie for the first time. “Up in the Air” resonated with me. It made me feel something and made me feel deeply. What more can I ask from a movie?