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MovieMail's Review
Clooney plays a smooth 'career transition advisor' threatened with losing his lifestyle in this smart contemporary satire. It comes across like a great American novel, says Peter Wild.
Arriving on these shores borne upon a golden wave of plaudits, Up in the Air harks back to the director's debut film Thank You For Smoking, in that we find ourselves in a contemporary corporate world that is urgent and familiar.
George Clooney is ‘career transition adviser’ Ryan Bingham, a man whose job it is to fire you when your own employers don’t have the guts to do it themselves. Bingham’s life is transit, his goal is to be the youngest executive to ratchet up 10,000,000 air miles (thereby granting him Executive Status for Life). He knows what suitcase will shave time off your flight, who to stand behind in the check-in queue and which loyalty card will get you dealt with first – ‘The slower you move,’ he tells us in voice-over, ‘the quicker you die.’
Adapted from the novel by Walter Sirk, the film truly comes alive in the points where it deviates from the book – namely by introducing two women, Natalie (a 23 year old graduate played by Anna Kendrick who plans to overhaul the way in which Bingham and colleagues work) and Alex (another long-haul commuter played by The Departed’s Vera Farmiga).
Threatened with losing the lifestyle he loves, Bingham takes Natalie on the road in order to demonstrate why what he does has to be done in person and – yes – along the way he learns a few things about himself but, crucially, not in the way you would suspect. On paper, for instance, Bingham could be a supercilious, shallow money grubber – but Clooney is smooth and complex. There are no easy answers here, although a well-judged sense of humour and a keen acceptance of ambiguity in the face of life’s big lessons ensures Up in the Air is both difficult and straightforward enough for a wide audience.
There are good performances from actors gradually making their way into the mainstream from the indie fringes (ranging from Arrested Development’s Jason Bateman to Eastbound & Down’s Danny McBride and Bored to Death’s Zach Galifianaki), as well as a whole host of cameos from ‘real’ people who actually lost their jobs during the current downturn.
All told, Up in the Air is the kind of film that will be favourably compared to great American novels – and like many great American novels, it improves the more you think about it. Recommended.
Commentary by Writer/Director Jason Reitman, Director of Photography Eric Steelberg and First Assistant Director Jason Blumenfeld
Shadowplay: Before The Story
Deleted Scenes with optional commentary by Jason Reitman
Theatrical Teaser & Trailer.
Film Description
Up in the Air sees George Clooney star as a 'corporate downsizing expert' (ie: he fires people) - and he's a man who takes his job very seriously. He travels the length and breadth of the USA, racking up air miles and living out of a suitcase - and relishing every moment of it. When his job and way of life come under threat by new centralised procedures implemented by his hotshot colleague Natalie (Anna Kendrick), Ryan determines to show her just how valuable his role is - but instead ends up facing up to some of the pitfalls of his lifestyle. The fim won the 2010 BAFTA for Best Adapted Screenplay.
