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 UP IN THE AIR 1 Hour, 49 Minutes Director: Jason Reitman Star: George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick |
If the economy is hell — layoffs, bailouts and executive bonuses — meet Ryan Bingham, the PowerPoint prince of darkness in Up in the Air.
Got employees to downsize? Bingham’s your corporate bagman of choice: A suave grim reaper who spends his days flying around middle America, cutting loose other people’s workers for them. He doesn’t terminate, he smooth-talks — “This is the first day of the rest of your life, and oh, I’ll need your keycard and here’s your severance.”
It’s the kind of occupation that would sap his spirit if he didn’t treat his soul like carry-on luggage. And it’s the kind of role that would cripple most actors, who would probably be either too weak (and therefore unconvincing) or too detestable (and therefore, well, detestable).
What luck then for writer-director Jason Reitman that in George Clooney he has found a leading man who suits his material like tailored silk: A movie star whose magnetic facade hints at deeper, existential doubts that can’t be brushed off by charisma.
You see, Bingham’s purposeful detachment from humanity isn’t just a function of his job — it’s a lifestyle. When he’s not ousting blind-sided employees, he’s delivering motivational speeches, preaching the virtues of a life that can be summed up — and contained in — a backpack. Keep what you need, he advises, jettison the rest because it’s weighing you down.
Certainly it’s a philosophy to which he subscribes. His apartment would have more personality if it were a motel room. Instead, he only feels at home surrounded strangers — flying on planes and lounging in airport terminals.
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But his outlook of emotional minimalism is soon challenged by two very different women. First, there’s Natalie (Anna Kendrick), the ambitious cost-cutter who wants to shackle Ryan to a desk and start firing people via online conferencing. The amount the company will save in travel expenses is, she argues, worth the inhumanity of it all.
But it’s a devastating development for Ryan who longs to be in the clouds and has just met the similarly nomadic Alex (Vera Farmiga), a sexy frequent flier who describes herself as him “with a vagina.” Worse, Ryan is forced to take his new nemesis on the road to show her first-hand the high art of the corporate kill.
You don’t need radar to see where this is going: Insolent Natalie will receive her comeuppance just as Ryan realizes how meaningless and hollow his life actually is.
The skill and delight of Reitman’s film, adapted from Walter Kirn’s novel, is that it avoids all the obvious turbulence: Sentimentality, slapstick and the modern-day brand of vapid sitcom filmmaking that’s as disconnected from real life as Clooney’s workplace executioner.
Certainly there are echoes of Reitman’s previous films here — the corporate skewering of Thank You for Smoking and the hyper-articulate emotionality of Juno. But Up in the Air is also richer and more resonant — effortlessly poignant and uproarious, often at the same time.
At the cool centre, Clooney orbits at the peak of his persuasive powers, playing off his persona but never so much that his performance doesn’t also surprise. It helps immeasurably that in Farmiga he has such a scintillating soulmate. Their crackling banter and courtship gives the romance a genuine joy and vulnerability that it might have otherwise lacked. And Kendrick makes for a perfectly-coiled and formidable foe in what could have been, with a lesser script, the thankless part of the upstart antagonist.
Buoyant, timely and bittersweet, Up in the Air finds Reitman at cruising altitude, confidently in the same airspace once occupied by zeitgeist masters Billy Wilder and Hal Ashby. This is the year’s best film.