Review: Up in the Air (2009)

[Mark R. Leeper]

                                        UP IN THE AIR
                               (a film review by Mark R. Leeper)

CAPSULE: George Clooney who has had a fairly successful 2009 killing  
chickens and staring goats to death rounds out the year as another suave  
character who flies around the country passing the bad news toe fire  
peopld by their bosses. Jason Reitman co-writes and directs with a style  
as smooth and assured as Clooney's. Eventually the film is about good  
choices and bad about independence and commitment. Costars Vera Farmiga  
and Anna Kendrick hold their own playing opposite Clooney. Rating: low +3  
(-4 to +4) or 8/10

Oddly enough, the film that UP IN THE AIR reminds me of is THE MAGNIFICENT  
SEVEN. In MAGNIFICENT SEVEN you have seven gunfighters who go from town to  
town solving serious problems for other people. They deal in lead and  
worry little about their victims. The people of the village all look up to  
the gunfighters, particularly the children do. But the peasants are the  
real winners because they have roots and family. The gunfighters are just  
drifters. Roots, we see, are of more importance than the glamorous image.  
In the end that is what the film is about as much as the gun fighting. UP  
IN THE AIR pulls the same little bait and switch on the viewer. It looks  
like it is about professional corporate down-sizers. It is really as much  
about people in glamorous jobs who trade personal connections and any  
semblance of a normal life for a glitzy profession.

The profession is "corporate downsizer". What is that? They say that  
everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. Business  
managers all over the country want to pay less in salaries by letting  
people go. That has been true for decades and it got much worse with the  
economic downturn. But management does not want to face their employees to  
fire them. Employees sometimes become violent, sometimes break down and  
cry, and sometimes make threats. And giving people bad news is simply a  
downer. Some employers have outsourced the undesirable task of firing  
employees to experts. Ryan Bingham (George Clooney), one such corporate  
axe- man makes a terrific living because he performs a service that  
business managers all over the country want. He is a professional firer.  
He breaks the bad news to employees he has not seen before and never will  
see again. Then he returns to his very fancy hotel room and sleeps like a  
baby. He has a nominal home to go back to, but prefers to be constantly on  
the road or flying up in the air. In one year he has racked up 350,000  
airline miles. With his charm he has found and attracted Alex Goran (Vera  
Farmiga of NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH here in a star-making role). She is an  
attractive corporate traveler with whom he has uncomplicated wild sex  
whenever he can arrange it. It is a good life. There is just one problem.  
His expensive job may be eliminated. Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick) just  
out of school has joined the same company. She intends to make firing even  
more impersonal by doing it over an Internet wire, thus saving huge travel  
and hotel expenses. This film is about this unlikely trio and their  
different philosophies of putting down roots. Ryan is so sure that his  
prestigious life style is perfect that he gives courses on how not to be  
tied down. Natalie is not so sure. Alex for her own reasons is very  
careful to stay out of the discussion.

Jason Reitman directs from a screenplay he co-wrote. Previously he  
directed THANK YOU FOR SMOKING about a lead lawyer for the tobacco  
industry who similarly had sacrificed his personal life for a highly  
remunerative job. Here he compares the firing style of the younger Natalie  
to the old pro Ryan. Natalie has more natural compassion for people she  
knows than Ryan does, but is more ruthless with total strangers. Ryan  
takes pride in softening the blows he brings to total strangers, even  
making the firing look momentarily like a positive step. He takes pride in  
his professionalism. But he has little more compassion for his family than  
he has for complete strangers.

One stylistic touch that is becoming a bit of a cliché is the montage of  
reaction shots. We have montages of five or six reactions of people being  
fired from the point of view of Ryan. We get two or three of these  
montages. Each employee fired takes the news in a slightly different way.  
Most are played by unknowns, but one is a short scene with the great J. K.  
Simmons, who played the father in Reitman's directly previous film JUNO.

It is odd that a film on such a painful subject in this economy can still  
entertain. Perhaps the economy even helps it. I rate UP IN THE AIR a low  
+3 on the -4 to +4 scale or 8/10.

Film Credits: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt1193138/

What others are saying: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/up_in_the_air_2009/
					Mark R. Leeper
					mleeper at optonline.net
					Copyright 2010 Mark R. Leeper