Up in the Air

I saw Up in the Air at a Stars & Strollers screening a few weeks ago and am just now getting around to writing about it. I had to give in to the award buzz and see if it was any good. I was pleasantly surprised.

Written and directed by Jason Reitman, the film stars George Clooney as Ryan Bingham, a "termination specialist" and aspiring motivational speaker. Ryan travels the country for work and loves his life constantly flying from place to place to fire the people working for the company that hires Ryan's firm. The film doesn't quite fall into just one genre. As with one of Reitman's other directorial films, Juno, the film is a comedic drama with a little bit of romance.


As with most every narrative film, the story begins when the protagonist's life is thrown out of balance by the inciting incident. The inciting incident being that Ryan is called into head office with the news that with the help of a new, young go-getter, Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick), the termination specialists will be working from the main office with the help of new technology. This panicks Ryan as he considers the airports, airplane cabins and hotels that he frequents home. He convinces the head boss to let him take Natalie on the road to show her why they can't fire people via webcam. Ryan also meets a woman named Alex (Vera Farmiga) who lives his jet setting lifestyle as well and begins a casual affair. Ryan has always liked his solitary life, sees no value in being tied down to the usual familial obligations and responsibilities and has based his motivational speaking philosophy on this. While attending his sister's wedding and with his affair with Alex becoming a little more than casual, Ryan begins to question his choice of lifestyle. One that Natalie deems a "cocoon of self-banishment".


I really like this film a lot not just because of the great writing, but because George Clooney is awesome and shows a side that I've never seen before, a vulnerable one. Also, the cast is great with Clooney, Farmiga and Kendrick all nominated for Golden Globes, Oscars and numerous other awards for their roles in this movie. There are a lot of great actors who appear even for a short amount of time that add so much to the film, like Jason Bateman as Ryan's quick witted, sarcastic boss, J.K. Simmons, Sam Elliot, Danny McBride and more. The character transformation with Ryan was subtle and well done. Reitman did a great job directing and illustrating Ryan's life up in the air while making his story a touching one. I highly recommend this one. Ending with a quote from Ryan's "motivational" talk about the amount of things in your figurative backpack when you add more relationships......

"Make no mistake your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. All those negotiations and arguments and secrets, the compromises. The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living. Some animals were meant to carry each other to live symbiotically over a lifetime. Star crossed lovers, monogamous swans. We are not swans. We are sharks. "

More ramblings to come.......