Up in the Air (My Favorite Movies)

Ryan Bingham doesn’t live as we do. We exist in our homes, safely on the ground and occasionally fly from time to time. He lives in the air, and only stays grounded from time to time. For him constant movement is the only way to live, standing still is the equivalent of having a gigantic weight attached to his back. The same goes for his relationships. He prefers to enter and leave peoples’ lives quickly so nothing ties him down. Such is the nature of his career.

This is the premise of Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air, a film I fear many people are beginning to forget about. After an initial buzz upon release, it was left on the backburner for Oscar season and since has faded into relative obscurity. Some have said that upon reflection it seems inconsequential, though I disagree vehemently. For me, it has only gotten better in the short amount of time since its release. This film is about the very world we live in today, the stresses, the fears, and the ways we conduct ourselves socially.

Ryan is played by George Clooney, whose performance has become underrated simply because (I think) he makes it look so incredibly easy. Ryan has a much more rugged charm than most Clooney characters, and a filthier mouth. He lives behind a façade of happiness, and the layers are peeled back with every scene. He is uncomfortable with a slower life, because he was not built that way. He doesn’t specialize in caring for others, for travel keeps them away. Some call him "isolated", but he describes it as "surrounded". It's true, he is surrounded, but by people he will never know.

His job: firing people. Not people he knows, but instead he is hired by other companies who don’t want to fire their own employees. A complete stranger to everyone, he goes in and tears down the lives of other people, and he gets paid with every pull of the trigger. He tries not to connect with each person, because that would break his very strict code by which he lives his life. He is a living routine, and woe to anyone who tries to break it up.

As it turns out, that person is Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick), a young hotshot out of Cornell who proposes that Ryan’s company fire people via web chat. Their boss Craig Gregory (Jason Bateman) decides to go with the idea, as it will cut costs dramatically. Needless to say, Ryan does not like the plan. He cites the impersonality of the ordeal, but his real objections are personal. What will become of his lifestyle he is so used to? He is a man without a home, but now he’s being told he’s forced to stay in Tulsa, and it’s an unwanted shock to the system.

A different shock to the system comes in the form of Alex Goran, played by Vera Farmiga. He meets her at a bar, and they begin a relationship that is never meant to amount to anything, but even Ryan can’t deny the attraction, despite what he might say. He is surrounded by people who seek companionship, and as such he has discovered he too wants it, but when you cut yourself off it proves to be a difficult find.

Up in the Air is, from minute 1 to minute 109, positively real. It is funny, but never broadly so. These people exist in the real world, their emotions are real emotions, and every word that comes out of their mouths rings true. Never does this film cheat to manufacture melodrama, either. The longer the film goes, the deeper it cuts. The phrase “a film for its time” was thrown around like the old pigskin upon release, but there is no better way to describe it. We live in a world where people are losing jobs, losing people from their lives and facing endless struggle. Ryan Bingham is a man immune to all of this. He stands alone, a figure of infallibility, until he allows himself to let his guard down.

Jason Reitman is only three films into his career, and thus far he is three-for-three. Thank You for Smoking is one of the best satires in recent memory, Juno is just about perfect for what it is, and now we have Up in the Air, which is easily his most ambitious, and as such his most successful. It is a portrait of a time in American history, and that time is ours. It’s not flattering, but it’s the world we are living in today as seen through the eye of a one-man hurricane. He comes in, causes serious damage, and moves on without looking back. I just hope that we don’t do the same to this movie.