The other day I got the chance to finally go see a film I'd been hearing quite a bit about these past few weeks. Jason Reitman, son of legend Ivan Reitman and director of Juno and Thank You For Smoking, has made what I consider to be his best film to date with Up in the Air. Starring George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, and Anna Kendrick (in a role that steals the movie), the film tells the story of a man who keeps relationships at a distance while arguing for the necessity of personal interaction when it comes to work. The ironic tone of the film delivers moments both genuinely profound, moving, hilarious, and unsettling; all the while weaving a story-line that eerily mirrors the headlines of today.
Ryan Bingham (Clooney) works for a company that hires him out to other companies during their lay-off periods to do a simple job: he does what these bosses don't have the courage, training, or tact to do in letting an employee go. He has his performances down to an art, having the right tone, facial expression, and response ready for any and all situations he encounters when talking to an employee right at the moment they get the axe. Priding himself on his ability to handle any situation, he lives from airport to airport, always "up in the air" above all the messy drama of relationships beneath him. His attachments are minimal as he is living virtually out of his suitcase (or "backpack" as one recurring motif would have it), and has no real relationships of value to keep him grounded to this place we all call the real world. That begins to change when he meets Alex Goran (Farmiga), a beautiful woman roughly his age who more-or-less lives the same lifestyle, and the two of them engage in an intense relationship based on sexual encounters and mutual desires to not turn anything into a bigger deal than it needs to be. Their relationship has no real weight of commitment to it, and both parties seem fine with it continuing that way for the time being.
Enter Natalie (Kendrick), a brilliant and determined young woman who has developed a new system that allows the company to continue to fire employees without the traveling and face-to-face encounters. Her system, which basically consists of video conferencing to fire someone in a rather impersonal way over the internet, begins to cause Bingham's world to collapse. The man who's built his life around the comfort of not being tied down suddenly finds himself "up in the air" in a different context, as his services and skills are - much like the people he's been letting go his whole life - no longer needed. Bingham makes a plea to his superior (played with candor by Jason Bateman) that Natalie's ideas, while noble, will never work in real-world scenarios. There's an art to what we do, he demands, setting people adrift in this river of post-employment uncertainty. His boss listens, and decides that to test the theory Bingham needs to take Natalie on the road with him and show her the ropes.
What follows is an often hilarious, sometimes heart-wrenching study in differing personalities, business models, ideologies, and worldviews. Reitman as a director concocts just the right mixture of real world scenarios and drama peppered with humor that everyone can relate to. In the end, both individuals discover what they're lacking in their understanding of the way the world works, and for some the blows come heavier and carry more weight than they (or we as the audience) were anticipating. At it's core, the film hits home a very real and very important message that's easy to lose sight of in a world that's becoming smaller and yet more impersonal. Our relationships are the heaviest components that affect our decisions and make us who we are... relationships with ourselves, our surroundings, and especially our family and friends. For the believer, the film takes on more weight when one considers the relationship we have with our Savior that (should) trump all other relationships. (Potential spoiler alert!) As Ryan comes to grips with the emptiness of his relationship with Alex (she calls him a "parenthesis" in the final scenes of the film), the viewer is presented with the ultimate poster child for what NOT to be in this time of economic uncertainty: an island unto himself. And the bittersweet final line of the film best sums up the lifestyle that Ryan will continue to live, devoid of weight, depth, and anything heavier than that which ends "up in the air."
The acting is strong, the script is good (albeit too much unnecessary language plus a brief glimpse of rear nudity), and the directing - as already noted - is nearly pitch perfect. Up in the Air perfectly captures the mood of the times and the state of the culture in which we live, as well as leaving the audience with a few thought provoking questions about the nature of having a tangible community and the importance of real relationships.
Rated R for language and some sexual content. Running time: 109 minutes.
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