Up in the Air

I won't lie; I've been confused for a while now on where the high anticipation for this film was coming from. I was confused when I realized the moment I had to preorder my ticket hours in advance to assure myself a seat that night. I was confused when I got there close to an hour early that the line to enter the theater for it went so far back into the recesses of the theater and spanned many different walls. The answer, probably, is that it is simply a great film.


Without dwelling too much on plot (I hate that), Up in the Air follows a man named Ryan Bingham (George Clooney), who flies all over the country to fire people on behalf of companies for a living. He leads a solitary life of isolation, fast paced movement and anti-commitment. Perfect for when he meets Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga), who quickly becomes a very "special" friend of his. He is perfectly content with his life until Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick, of Twilight fame) comes along, a bright-eyed new employee straight out of Cornell, who convinces boss Craig Gregory (Jason Bateman) to drastically cut down costs of airfare by firing people over webcam. Gregory orders Bingham to show Keener the ropes of their work after Bingham vocally airs his complaints about this new system, and both begin to teach each other about maturity, relationships, and the bases for the value of your life as it ages.

Initially, I was rather unimpressed by the acting. Clooney's done this a million times before and just had a lot more material to work with. Kendrick isn't nearly the revelation that Ellen Page was in Jason Reitman's previous Juno two years ago, who was able to deliver heavily "written" lines far more naturally than Kendrick. I was always a fan of Vera Farmiga, though, who always seems to have a knack for lifting underwritten and undeveloped roles to miraculous life. With this ability, she works wonders with this role.

But as the two more significant players in the film, I was only able to more appreciate Clooney and Kendrick in the larger context. Once the screenplay gets into the real nitty-gritty of its themes and lessons (we'll get to that), Clooney locks the audience in on this emotional journey — articulating the film's message with sophisticated skill. Anna Kendrick's performance was only as self-conscious as her character, by the end portraying a very delicate young girl stunted in growth by her constant strive for perfection with grace and sensitivity. Sure, Clooney's role in the beginning as an independent and largely apathetic professional bachelor fit him like a glove and it was hard to distinguish actor from performance. Sure, Kendrick's delivery was a bit mechanical in the beginning and her breaking down over her breakup, for example, seemed like a very forced attempt to show childlike naïvitae. But, by the end, both actors redeemed themselves in their performances and deserve every inch of praise they'll be sure to receive in the coming months.

And shout-out to the unsung heroes of the film, y'all! — the plethora of anonymous actors Reitman hired, only to get fired, played their parts with a devastating pregnancy of loss, horror, panic, shame, and confusion (all at once). The woman describing her plan to jump off a bridge when she gets home does it with such bone chilling confidence that you're not sure if she won't follow through with her threat. The 57 year old man who had the luck of being the first man fired by Natalie's new system has a cold emptiness in his eyes, and one can see the soul of his character come crashing down as he starts to sob. They articulate, at first, the cruelty of Ryan Bingham's job and how it informs his apathy in life towards human relationships and life, and, later on, the harshness of Natalie's new method and the coldness this new age of virtual interaction has led (highlighted by her boyfriend breaking up with her through a text message).

None of the actors, however, would be anything without that screenplay. Such a comprehensive examination of age, technology, interactions, family, loneliness, so maturely interwoven together and expressed in a way that does not underestimate the audience's intelligence nor risk going over its head. Of course a lot of this is accredited to the book it's based upon, but I'm sure none of it could come across so cinematically had it not been for the adaptation by Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner.

And then, of course, is the gift of the slightest touch by Reitman's direction that seems to speak volumes in his films. It was a bit flashier in the beginning — the editing at just as rapid fire a pace as Bingham's life, but soon he seemed to let his grasp loose and let the interaction between the actors speak for itself (which worked better at some times than others). His establishing of the deep space and wide open shots in the airport scenes gave the spectator a familiar sense of alienation and isolation from the world similar to Bingham's.

And by the time it gets to Bingham going to northern Wisconsin for his sister (Melanie Lynskey)'s wedding, the trademarks of young Reitman start to show. He seems to have this gift of making snow in the sunlight really personal and cozy, and kind of like you're seeing in to some more intimate world of his characters. The tone of the film at this point is a stark difference from before, and can be a bit jarring. Elliott Smith music starts playing in the background during montages of seemingly candid activities between friends and families. The print is a lot more digitized and Reitman screams to attention how "handheld" the camera is, making it look like some weird cross between I Heart Huckabees and an episode of The Office. It has that growingly-cliché "indie" feel to the movie, I guess going back to Reitman's directorial roots. Normally, this abrupt contrast would be a fault of the director; but Bingham is having just as much difficulty adjusting to it as the audience is. And by the time I, personally, was able to let go of the drastic stylistic shift, I became just as immersed in the world of his family as Bingham was (here is where the credit to Clooney for taking us on his emotional journey really kicks in), and I really rooted for him to be allowed to be as involved with his family now than he allowed himself to be in the past.

The film ends on a note that's bleak, but hopeful. It's happy, it's heartbreaking, it's more or less the way life went before and how it will continue. But it allows the viewer to observe it with a fresher insight and more informed perspective on the inner workings of all the implications involved. And, in getting across what should be the most important things in life, helps keep the viewer just a little more grounded.