As the poster above implies, this is the third big time film for director Jason Reitman. He is known for his work in 'Juno' and 'Thank You For Smoking'. He has also directed episodes of 'The Office' and 'Saturday Night Live'. In all of his work that I've seen, there's definitely been that indie feel to everything involved in the movie. He has never had the big star under his direction, which probably has been key in his early success. Now, however, he had the opportunity to direct George Clooney. I was a bit worried when I had heard this because I thought that Reitman was going to pull strongly for whatever he wanted, and in the end, would have made this a dud. This does not have that indie feel to it at all; and in fact, it actually turned out to be a very interesting movie, worthy of all the Oscar buzz.
'Up in the Air' is about a traveling man named Ryan Bingham, played by Clooney. What Ryan does for a living is pretty brutal. He has to fly around the country and lay off different employees from different workplaces for the bosses who are too cowardly to do it themselves. He also from time to time will give motivational speeches about having a relationship-free life, using a backpack as an analogy. This seems like a terrible job to have, but Ryan actually enjoys what he does. He loves the fact that he is pretty much anonymous during his traveling, which is why he has never really kept close to his family and does not have much of a personal life. Because of all the flying that he is doing, he is also close to acheiving a personal goal of his: ten million frequent flyer miles (only six others have done this). During one of his stops, he meets a woman named Alex, who describes herself to Ryan as, "like you but with a vagina". They then decide to pursue a casual relationship, seeing as how it would be too difficult and unecessary to start a legitimate one. When Ryan is grounded for a few days out of the year, he learns from his boss (played by Jason Bateman) that they are developing a new way of letting people go, this time via webcam. It is being developed by a fresh out of college grad, named Natalie Keener. Bingham and her immediately clash, leading Bateman's character to force Bingham to bring Natalie on his next stint in the air. While on their trip together, Natalie learns the ins-and-outs of the interpersonal side of the job, while Bingham is being challenged as to why he chooses his relationship-free lifestyle. They both begin to realize the disheartening parts of their issues at hand, and they eventually have to figure out what they want out of their new lives.
There is something that fascinates me with this film. It is so 'real'. It is one hundred percent believable. It is especially relevant with the times we are currently in. People probably have been laid off in a similar way to this recently. I also think that this can raise the question of what life would be like if you chose to isolate yourself from everyone. It makes you think about where you are at whatever point of your life you are in. A very thought provoking and honest film, but it being a smidge slow at times keeps it from the perfect score. But look for this to do some serious damage come Oscar time.
Rating: 3.5 out of 4 stars
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