Up in The Air
I knew the directing style of this movie was familiar. Now I know why. It’s because it was directed by Jason Reitman, the director of Juno and Thank You for Smoking. The movie had a documentary/home-video feel to it that makes you want to watch it even more.
So without any further ado, Ryan Bingham, played by George Clooney (Burn After Reading and Syriana) works for CTC, Career Transition Counseling, a company whose sole activity is firing people on behalf of its clients. So, Ryan travels across the country firing other companies employees. During all this traveling he finds the time to rack up air miles and accumulate hotel and car rental loyalty cards, which to him is a goal to achieve.
All is going well so far and Ryan is happy with his life of non-commitment to anybody. While on one of his trips, he meets his would-be travel soul mate in Alex Gordon, played by Vera Farmiga (the Departed and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas), and they agree to meet casually whenever they cross each other’s flight paths. But, back in the office, a new and young Cornell graduate, Natalie Keener, played by Anna Kendrick (Twilight and New Moon), introduces her new cost cutting online system that allows CTC to fire people over the internet. Ryan of course is totally against this impersonal method of giving people the worst news of their careers. To make things worse, he is asked by his boss to take Natalie on the road one last time to show her how it’s done in person. In the meantime, Ryan is also giving a series of motivational talks to professionals titled Unpacking Your Backpack, which explain the good side of not having many ties to the people around you or things you own; this being the philosophy he follows in his own life.
A fairly good movie for Clooney; and I can’t help thinking that Ryan might actually be the closest to his own persona in real life. Excellent script including classic one-liners, which are Clooney’s specialty. Although Clooney stands out as the most interesting character in the movie, Kendrick plays her part of Natalie to perfection and one of her best scenes is the way she blurts out her breakup to Clooney when they first arrive in Miami, and the IT conference scene, which they gatecrash. If you are a Clooney fan this is a must see movie.
Movie tip: Kevin Renick, an unrecorded and unemployed St. Louis musician, wrote the song “Up in the Air” after being laid off two years before Reitman started work on the film. He gave Reitman the recording during a Q&A at Webster University in St. Louis.
