Director: Jason Reitman
After impressive freshman and sophomore efforts in “Thank You For Smoking” and “Juno”, director Jason Reitman has taken on perhaps his most thematically ambitious work to date in “Up in the Air”. Heralded by nearly all critics as “a film for our times”, the film uses our sour economy as the backdrop for a story very much about corporate inhumanity.
Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) is a corporate layoff officer, a downsizing expert who spends his spare time giving lectures about freeing oneself from life’s baggage. The job title gives him the responsibility of traveling across the country, firing employees from businesses run by managers too cowardly to do the task for themselves. Many of the strangers that he delivers the news to respond with questions about how they’re going to continue to support their family, and Bingham has assembled a series of expertly-crafted empty phrases to get them on their way with minimal damage to the office.
Pathetically, the only goal in Bingham’s life seems to be to join the ranks of an exclusive club: the group of seven who have attained ten million frequent flier miles at their choice airline. Perhaps only one person would find that sexy, and she is Alex (Vera Farmiga), a fellow traveler. Meanwhile, Bingham has been burdened with a new hire, Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick), who has successfully pitched an innovation that involves insourcing the layoff duties and completing the task via webcam.
Clooney has been criticized as being a one-note actor, and here he is also, well, George Clooney: sexy, suave, irresistibly charismatic. Only an actor of his charms could bring humanity to such a self-congratulatory prick. The great Vera Farmiga, who deserves many more roles of this weight, is terrific support. The scenes with Clooney and Farmiga together, their dialogue clever and highly suggestive, are maddeningly sexy.
Reitman’s a director who makes mass appeal films with hard edges, and his work has only gotten better since his debut. Although still relatively new to the game, Reitman has solidified himself as the go-to guy for smart, mainstream comedy.
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