UP IN THE AIR, thank you for working

Score:

Ryan Bingham spends his time flying around the country firing people. His mornings start with a trip through airport security and the cheap sushi at the terminal is a warm reminder of home to him. That is, until he's grounded. From Jason Reitman, director of Thank You For Smoking and Juno, Up in the Air is a fascinating view on the suitcase lifestyle of a man who ruins the lives of others, and likes it. Reitman has a knack for directing stories about men with despicable jobs, and this is his best work yet.

Ryan Bingham calls himself a "termination facilitator." His employer, Craig Gregory (Jason Bateman), has about 200 other facilitators just like him, but Bingham is the best; he's their magnum opus. He flies around the country year-round laying off employees for employers too scared to do the job themselves (or end it, I suppose). We quickly learn his value when he fires a man named Steve (Zach Galifianakis). Steve doesn't take his firing too well, to say the least. In a fit of rage he destroys an office, poisons coffee, and even brings a hunting bow to the office. 

Enter Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick), a young college graduate who's joined the company with a bunch of usurping ideas. She's devised a way to fire people via Skype, which is much cheaper and more efficient than having to send one man all the way across the country to do the job. Why send a man to do what a disembodied face on a computer can do just as easily? Gregory loves it; Bingham sees it as doomsday for his way of life.

You see, Ryan Bingham's entire life can fit inside a backpack. He even has a series of lectures where he talks about just that: how to live without connections. His family has all but forgotten him; even the girl next door had to find another man because the man next door is never around. Ryan Bingham takes connections, but he doesn't make them. That is, until he meets Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga).

 

"Think of me as yourself with a vagina," Goran tells him. The two are so in sync that they bust out their laptops after sex to figure out when their schedules line up again. When they're apart, they sext each other on their Blackberries. Their romance feels like a mix between teenage puppy love and aging desperation. Bingham knows that his way of life is about to end and for the first time he realizes that frequent flyer miles are all he has to show for it.

Like Rob Gordon (Cusack) in High Fidelity, Ryan Bingham (Clooney) has a lot to say. Our job is to listen and discern. He's got some good ideas in his philosophy, but there are some gaping holes. Jason Reitman, who also co-wrote the picture, cleverly mingles this healthy dose of narration and philosophy with a set of events that take the tale beyond a simple Hollywood live & learn tale. With Up in the Air, he hits all the emotional buttons we want him to, but isn't satisfied to end there. He keeps going, bombing the audience with more than expected instead of landing safely.

Visually, there's so much to love about the film. It opens with the sky shown then cut apart to an R&B rendition of "This Land is Your Land." In a later scene, we see Bingham in front of a grounded airplane, his silhouette broken by the confining clear window before him. Like Thank You for Smoking, the compositions show us Ryan Bingham almost more clearly than the plot.

Up in the Air is the type of movie I plan to see again, and probably buy on DVD. It's funny, witty, smart, beautiful, entertaining, and self-conscious. Jason Reitman has proven he's still someone to watch, and he's certainly not going anywhere. This is a definite Oscar contender. 

Trailer and Poster

Comments

[Jaclyn]

Great review!