UP IN THE AIR

“UP IN THE AIR” (George Clooney, Anna Kendrick & Vera Farminga)

This had the burden of being hailed as a possible Best Picture candidate, & any other year, I would have laughed at that lofty designation, but in this crappy movie season,
“Up In The Air” IS in the running (Despite not being nearly as good as Clooney’s ‘Michael Clayton’)
It is a very likeable film – akin to ‘Thank You For Smoking’ in that it has some very clever & witty dialogue which causes you to connect with the characters even though they aren’t exactly the type of people you'd want have around.
George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham; a man with a job most would hate to have, but Ryan loves it. Spending most of his time flying across the country to various companies to do their dirty work of firing members of their staff for them is perfect for Ryan because he has become totally disconnected with humans in his personal life.
The film introduces Ryan by showing how he conducts his ‘business’ – he fires Zack Galifinakis (of “Hangover” fame) promising Zack’s character that “This is just the beginning, pal - I’ll be with you until we get you back on your feet.” Then, as the camera shows Zack walking out with a somewhat positive attitude after being ‘let go’, Clooney says (in a v/o) “I’ll never see him again.”
Ryan is on the road more than 300 days a year & he likes it that way, so when boss Jason Bateman calls everybody in off the road for a ‘special’ meeting, Ryan is less than pleased. When it is announced that everyone has been grounded & would be doing their firing from their offices in Omaha, Ryan scoffs. Young, spunky college grad Natalie (Anna Kendrick) has been brought on board to lead the team into the new century by showing the experts how to fire people in the most demeaning way possible, via the internet.
Ryan scoffs & challenges Natalie’s idea; the boss’s solution is to send her ‘up in the air’ with Bingham. As he does with practically every film he is in, J.K. Simmons steals his one scene by simply being perfect. In a film that had several original lines of dialogue, my favorite, without question, was when Simmons looked crossways at perky, cherub-faced Natalie & sneered, “Go F--- Yourself!” It’s all in the delivery & J.K. does it as well as any character actor around.
Vera Farminga plays Alex; Ryan’s love interest, & even though I enjoyed their witty banter, something about the coupling didn’t sit right. I felt that Alex seemed too young for Ryan, or that she wasn’t attractive enough to entice a guy that looked like George Clooney. Both characters are shallow, but that’s what brings them together & I enjoyed their seemingly meaningless relationship based only on sex & the aforementioned mutual shallowness. The few times the movie went thru any turbulence, was with Ryan & Alex – it shined, however with the ‘business-only’ relationship between Ryan & Natalie.
Now, when you think about the premise of this film, it sounds quite boring – It is basically a love story (Ryan & Alex) but how do you sell the idea of a plotline that includes flying on a plane (where nothing ever really happens) walking thru various airports & rental car agencies (where nothing much ever happens) & several scenes of employees being fired by someone they’ve never met before (Because as Ryan says in the opening, “the boss is too chicken sh*t to do his own dirty work)
It actually SOUNDS depressing, & unfortunately that’s what happens in the last 15 minutes of “Up In The Air” – It is as if the script writer decided he was tired of writing clever lines that evoked chuckles & smirks so he decided to end the story on a down note by not having a single funny line. This happens coincidentally when Ryan & Natalie are pulled from the road.
In this really bad year, “Up In The Air” is a bright spot – but is it ‘great’? No. But it dares you not to like it & succeeds in being an entertaining flick. Between this & his work in ‘The Men Who Stare At Goats’, George Clooney may get my Best Actor of 2009 award (Won last year by Robert Downey, Jr. for “Tropic Thunder” & “Iron Man”)
In the critically panned ‘Goats’, Clooney played an off-center character & was the best part of the film – in “UITA”, it seems as though he’s playing someone close to what he’s like in ‘real life’ – so which is the better acting job? & simply because ‘the critics’ love this film & hated ‘Goats’, George will get a nomination for playing Ryan Bingham & not for Lyn Cassady even though he really had to work his acting muscles in the latter role...