Up In The Air
Jason Reitman opens Up In The Air with a view that Ryan (Clooney), an image of professional death in the form of an apparently disarmingly free smile and an expensive suit, is both familiar and comfortable with. Floating serenely through the clouds without a care in the world seems, much like Ryan’s existence, to be free of worry and ultimately without emotional cost or baggage.
You see, Ryan’s world is ordered to the nth degree. This is a man that admires loyalty but is emotionally attached to nobody, preferring to spend his time travelling from one job of dismissing temporarily faceless people with names that last only as long as it takes to fire them on behalf of employers that do not have the nerve to do it themselves.
Ryan is the kind of person, however, who clearly from the outset is not doing the unattractive job because he likes to, or even for the salary. He does it for the air miles. In a convenient turn, his life has become a daily sub-total of progressing to a goal that requires little or no emotional stability to attain. His reason for being never so much as gets a sniff of attachment to anything more substantial than a business class seat.
At grass roots, Up In The Air is a simple tale about a man who thinks he has his life in check but then realises he wants something more, which is a shock to both himself and his audience of backpack carriers throughout the many states he visits. Told by Reitman with a deft touch for pace (notice the speed and clear cut lines at the beginning, to the fuzzier more independent feel of the film grain by its completion) and you visually travel with Ryan from confident and slick, to unsure and lost without so much of a beat skipping.
Even the narration by Clooney is only really in evidence during moments of confidence, and you could be forgiven in those early moments of being reminded of Danny Ocean.
Already a frontrunner for a handful of Oscars, no doubt both film and best actor will appear in the nominations. We could easily see actress and supporting actress also making an appearance in the form of Farmiga (long overdue) and Kendrick though both are much longer shots.
During one of many business lounge departures, he encounters Alex (Farmiga), who appears to be all he could possibly want in a woman. Available, intelligent, and as vociferously driven in pursuit of elite travelling status as he is. When they meet, the conversation is smart, but to the majority of people that do not respond to the same virtues as these two do, they come off as loveably, even comedically compatible, if more than a little bit geeky.
So begins an affair with just enough responsibility for both that only happens when they are in the same airport. Intermittent, but nonetheless more progressively meaningful with each encounter.
When Ryan is forced to guide new recruit Natalie (Kendrick) around how he does his daily thing, he of course resists, but soon finds that his new charge has slightly bigger balls than their first meeting would have suggested, regardless of her slight frame and somewhat wistful outlook, directly opposing his own philosophy, such as it is.
An immensely enjoyable two hour study of a man in the middle of a crisis, whether he is initially aware of it or not, and the effect it has on those around him.
Clooney plays Ryan as only Clooney can, with some beautiful, simple moments that you really need to go back and appreciate more than once.
There is a reason he is as popular as he is, and it is encouraging that cinema audiences and critics alike see the talent Clooney has in spades, even on occasions like this, when his turn is subtle, deeply studied and delightfully and realistically flawed.
Recommended.
Up In The Air is released in the UK on 15th January 2010
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