Ryan McNeil
What’s the value of contact? Close contact?? Is it a part of our lives that we need indespenibly? Or is it in fact overrated…someting that can hold us back, tie us down, and inevitably kill us. Do we need to have people in our lives to help us through it? Or might we be better off is we only had to worry about ourselves, and the task at hand? If George Clooney’s character Ryan Bingham is to be believed – human relationships are overrated, and if you give him five minutes to talk to you, he’ll proove it.
Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) works for a firm that subcontracts him out to termiante corporate employees. he is sent from city to city to do just one thing – sit across the table from you, tell you you’re fired, and hand you a folder. To say he has it down to a fine science is an understatement. At this point in his career, he’s surgical. The twist about his situation, is that he’s quite happy being on the road 322 days a year. His friends are stewardesses. His home is a preferred passengers lounge.
Unfortunately, his corporate nirvana is about to be upset. His firm has hired a crackerjack efficiency expert named Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick). She stands up and trumpets the future – a business model where these professional termination experts don’t fly from place to place handing out pink slips, they do it all by webcam. Ryan is unconvinced that she knows that of which she speaks. He convinces his boss of this just enough to provoke a training exercise. She’ll go with him from town to town, business to business, seeing just what it’s like to look at the person across the table and find an eloquent way to say “You’re fired”.
Keener is a sudden strong female presence causing waves for a man who fancies his life as an island. Adding to the fun is the fact that she isn’t the only one. In a hotel bar, Ryan meets Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga). She’s cut from the same cloth that he is. She has a taste for executive perks, and just like Ryan, has the air of a shark that will never stop moving for consequence of death. She and Ryan have an instant chemistry, sharing a flirtation and seduction unlike anything you’ve ever seen in the movies…and yet equally as hot as any seduction you’ve ever seen.
Between his desire for Alex, and his mentoring of Natalie, Ryan’s every life philosophy is about to be put to the test.
UP IN THE AIR is a comment on the state of the North American economy by focusing so much energy on people being fired. This is actually quite an effective theme, as you realize that there are entire businesses out there dedicated to ending people’s careers. They succeed in the same unfortunate way that funeral parlours succeed…it sucks, but it’s true. What UP IN THE AIR does well though, is make us understand the difficult tact one has to take to fire an employee. Clooney is good at it. He doesn’t even look you in the eye when he says “That’s the truth”, but yet you’d still believe that it was. The techniques of termination on display in this movie are surgical…and yet human at the same time.
Unsurprisingly, where it gets inhuman – and pretty damned cold – is when Natalie’s plan to terminate employees by webcam starts getting tested. It’s right down there with getting dumped by text message.
Unfortunately, UP IN THE AIR tries to be a lot more than that…and in so doing, tries to be too many things. Where the movie seems to lose its way, is when it finally makes Ryan cave and give in to the nagging voice in the back of his head that thinks personal relationships might not be so bad. This leads him not only to reach out to Alex (a device that works), but also to his sisters (a device that doesn’t). The family plotline takes Ryan down a predictable path, and one that seemed a tad implausible. I liked this film, but I think that had this element not been added to the story, I would have loved it.
When Ryan tells us how much he enjoys the life he has made, I believe him. Hell, the guy could tell me the sky is yellow, and I’d probably believe him. The character has clearly gone to the Nick Naylor school of talking, and holds an honours degree. Hearing someone say they dislike being home might sound ludicrous…until you see how barren and empty he actually keeps his home. Perhaps its this part of his life that causes me to trip over the choices Ryan makes in the film’s final act. He grows, and goes through a lot of introspection…but the choices he makes don’t feel like choices he would make.
Hell, I don’t even know if they are choices I would make!
Bumpy landing and all, UP IN THE AIR succeeds with what it wants to say about connections. It serves as a reminder that in an age of text messaging, twittering and *ahem* blogging, there is no substitute for human contact. True, many of us may walk through the airports of our lives with far too much baggage for such a pedestrian trip. However what the movie understands best, is that it isn’t the travelling that matters…it is indeed the travellers that travel with us.
I really can't wait to see this. Wish it wasn't getting its wide release so far off 🙁
I echo what Ryan said and I will now not hijack this post by moaning at length about the fact that this isn't out here until January 15th when the US gets it from Christmas Day onwards. Ahem.
I really enjoyed that review. Excellently written. The trailer and reviews for this have been stellar and I'm hoping I get time to see it at the cinema. In January.
@ This Time & Univarn… I take for granted the fact that I get to take advantage of exclusive runs sometimes. I'll admit, I felt especially lucky when I noticed that UITA is only playing in fifteen theatres across North America right now.
Nice review. I really liked this movie too, but I felt like it thinks it's deeper and more meaningful than it actually is, and in the end was a bit unfulfilling. The cast is great though and it had a nice balance of humor and drama.
I'm reticent about this. I wasn't a big fan of Juno, but I did find Thank You For Smoking to be quite good. I don't like Clooney so that doesn't help. But as I keep saying…Farmiga is my draw here. I hope she doesn't disappoint.
I was thinking about doing a double bill of An Education and Bad Lieutenant this weekend, but I just found out that Up in the Air will be opening at the AMC near me this weekend, which would save me from making the trek to the Varsity theatre….hmm… I may have to cut the Cage flick at this was one of the few TIFF films I really wanted to see but could not get into.
Yeah I had to drive an hour to see this one last weekend. I went to a 10:30 am showing and it was completely sold out.
I loved this film (I gave it 4/4), and I thought the wedding sequence worked well. I agree that Ryan's newfound family feelings might have been a little bit cliche, but I loved the way his relationship with Alex developed during the wedding. The scenes at his old high school were priceless.
@ Alex… I know what you mean. I'm content to just let the movie be, delusions of grandeur and all. It might not go down as one of the greats, but it's certainly a very good flick.
@ Andrew… Clooney is actually pretty good in this, he brings a bit more range than he usually does. You'll dig it – it leans more towards SMOKING than it does towards JUNO.
@ CS… A weekend double-bill of AIR and EDUCATION would probably be pretty sweet. Good to know you can see it local, I made the trip to Varsity for it…which was surprisingly packed for a Monday.
@ Danny… Sorry to hear you had to make more than one attempt at it…I've only been the victim of having a movie go sold out once in the last few years.
I liked the Wisconsin scenes between Ryan and Alex, but I found it a little tough to see someone so deeply entrenched in being alone give all that up somewhat easily. Likewise, I had to shake my head at the fact that Ryan is the one sent to talk to the person who needs some talking to.
I don't know about you, but I would have been asking "Is there anybody else we can have talk to them?".
Lookin' forward to reading your review!
I appreciate your sympathy very much, but I've just noticed I worded my comment poorly…
I was able to buy tickets and see the show, but at the 10:30 am show I went to, there wasn't one empty seat. I just felt the audience anticipation was worth mentioning.
As far as the family asking Ryan to speak for them, I think it was just based upon who Jim (McBride's character) would listen to…
It seemed like his main reasons for being skeptical about the marriage was him meeting a single Ryan and realizing just how happy he was. So, in a way, Clooney's character got Jim to thinking about the downsides of marriage, and therefore, it was his duty to fix that.
A lot of people are calling this the next American Beauty(pretty but no substance). I hope they're wrong.
@ fitz…
A – I still like AMERICAN BEAUTY and think it has a lot of substance.
B – The two are very different films. This does have a lot to say about who we are as we go through these difficult times, and who we choose to be based on how we decide to live our lives.
It's a good flick – give it a look when it comes to your town.
"Up in the Air" turned out to be a movie that was very different from what I expected. "Juno" and "Thank You for Smoking" leaned more heavily toward comedy, while "Up in the Air" provides the kind of laughs you choke on. In this economy, the storyline hits perilously close to home. What's amazing is that George Clooney makes his character empathetic and not slick and phony. He's growing into himself as an actor, and his best roles are these — the ones that don't focus on how dreamy he is.
@ M.Carter… When I podcasted about this movie, i mentioned that it felt like we got to see a Clooney we don't usually see in this movie, the sort of Clooney only glimpsed briefly toward the end of MICHAEL CLAYTON.
I think the guy is really growing as an actor – hopefully we haven't seen the end of his evolution.