Very rarely have I walked into a film and felt that it was the right film, at the right time. After all, with the production length of some films and the entire filming process, some films are released at a point where they just feel stale or like old news. Their relevance seems to be dampened. Fortunately, "Up in the Air" is a film of great relevance and its setup is far more poignant now then it would have been if it was released 6 months from now or years removed from our current economic climate. Of course this is not to say the film's impact would not be felt if it were released later, but at this moment it feels all the more real.
Based on the novel of the same name, "Up in the Air" details the life of Ryan Bingham (George Clooney),a corporate cleaner of sorts, whose profession consists of firing employees from companies around the United States. Because his job is primarily based on traveling from company to company, Ryan spends about 90% of his time on the road; using the sky as a means of transportation. Obviously anyone with such a career needs a rather compact life. Ryan doesn't date, he doesn't get bogged down by a social life, and ultimately the methods of his life are based on efficiency (i.e. packing his bag, finding quick ways through an airport, etc.) With this kind of life, it's easy to see how Ryan has not only become successful, but why he is able to travel so much. He has nothing, not even a respectable "home" to yearn for when he is on the road. The only thing he looks forward to is reaching a goal of 10 million flyer miles which would allow him all the frills an airliner has to offer. Oh and not to mention he gets his name placed on the side of a plane. Yet Ryan's goal and job stability take a hit when his company hires a hot shot grad student from Cornell named Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick)whose whole goal is to replace Ryan's face to face firings with a more cost effective method of firing people through teleconference.
This detail obviously perturbs Ryan not only because of his personal goal, but also because he feels his more intimate firings actually help people. So to prove his point, Ryan takes Natalie on a trek with him across the country as Ryan hopes to convince Natalie that what he does is important and that in many respects, is something she can't handle. Amongst this ordeal Ryan meets Alex (Vera Farmiga), a woman who shares similar qualities with Ryan as she is constantly flying for her job and doesn't partake in relationships that are more than sex based. Between his developing relationships with Natalie and Alex, for the first time in his adult life, Ryan begins to contemplate the life he currently leads and wonders if having a meaningful, lasting relationship would be worthwhile. From this comes moments of bitterness, tenderness, sadness, love, and an appreciation of human connection.
Juggling such moments is writer/director Jason Reitman who has demonstrated in his previous efforts "Thank You for Smoking" and "Juno" that he is more than capable of creating a film that can balance moments of hilarity with moments of dramatic clarity. Such a balance occurs in the various scenes where Ryan, with Natalie by his side, has to fire a group of people. Some scenes contain moments of controlled insanity and banter, but before they stray too far down the line, Reitman delicately reels them in, creating bittersweet scenes that at times can be extremely hard to swallow. The scenes become even more poignant considering how Reitman has beautifully tied in the world's economic crisis with the film's main themes. This obviously not only gives the film more relevance for the time, but is a harsh reality that we all understand too well and something we can undeniably connect with.
Certainly as an audience we can connect with the people who are getting fired, but one would think that the character doing the firing and one as reclusive as Ryan Bingham, would be public enemy number one, but that's not the case here. Instead we come to find Ryan quite lovable. This is in part because of Reitman's ability to draw complexity out of Ryan's job. Certainly Ryan is the one firing the people, but he is merely the middle man in the situation and more often than not Ryan is able to give the fired employees a sense of direction and hope when they pack up their things. With Reitman aside, the biggest reason why we come to find Ryan to be so lovable is because of the charming performance of George Clooney who delivers probably the best performance of his career. He's charismatic, funny, and endearing as he wonderfully plays off of Kendrick and Farmiga, who themselves turn in tremendous award worthy performances. Yet it's Clooney's performance that drives the film all the way home and in many ways, it's his performance that embodies the entire film. At once it's funny, melancholic, bittersweet, and completely in the moment as it shows us that even in the darkest of times, we have numerous connections and tools to guide us through any incarnation of a depression. It's with this notion that people can reach heights that money and flyer miles can't take them.
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