Up in the Air (Drama/Comedy)

Just in case you needed another reason to love George Clooney his latest movie – ‘Up in the Air’ - is just that! George plays Ryan Bingham, a corporate downsizing expert who essentially gets paid by clients to help them “retrench” unwanted employees. In doing so, he is constantly on the road – or ‘up in the air’ – and living out of suitcase. And as he blatantly says, “everything the average person hates about travelling are warm reminders that I am home”.

I was really looking forward to seeing ‘Up in the Air’, partly for the George factor, but also because movies that are set in familiar American cities always make me feel a tad nostalgic or even ‘homesick’ for the country I lived in for four years. But as I watched Bingham move through airport security, sit in hotel bars alone at night, and sleep in empty hotel rooms, I felt immediately depressed as it reminded about the reality of my own working life in the United States! I remember often feeling completely disconnected from friends, from family, from the city I was supposed to be living in. I would gaze around at the many middle aged men sitting alone with me in the airport lounge late at night, or sitting alone in the hotel bar, and wonder if they were happy with that bland existence. So right from the start of this film I was hooked – I had so often wondered in my work travels whether characters like Ryan Bingham actually existed. The movie almost makes you feel like Ryan could be one of those unique individuals that are truly made happy by life on the road. He even has an apartment that looks like a hotel room complete with Hilton slippers and American Airlines peanuts!

But unfortunately for Ryan, a new up and comer named Natalie (played by Anna Kendrick) has finally discovered a way to utilise technology and cut costs by firing over the internet which causes Ryan to reevaluate his life philosophy as he becomes “grounded” indefinitely. He starts to realise that he might need to establish some more meaningful connections in his life than the one he has with lady at the American Airlines check-in desk that is paid to remember his name. And so one night in a hotel bar when he meets Alex (played by the gorgeous Vera Farmiga ) who describes herself as a female version of Ryan, he thinks he might be ready to make a connection.

I found this storyline about Alex and Ryan's relationship engaging on so many levels: whether as a female we can have a truly non emotional commitment, whether or not someone who is so non-committal is just waiting for the right time or the right person, whether two people who are so similar can ever really work together. In discussing this film with my mum I thought it was so interesting that what she took from this storyline was how often two people make massive assumptions about each other and then act upon them without ever really asking what the other wants. Whereas I took from it a slightly different perspective as I thought the rules of the game were made very clear by both Ryan and Alex and it made me think about how much two people often forge ahead in relationships based on what they want to believe even when someone is blatantly demonstrating or telling them they feel differently. I wondered if our different perspective were in large part due to our very different experiences as women from her generation to mine.

This film also really made me think about the emptiness of goal achievement. Bingham was obsessed with earning miles. There’s a haunting scene towards the end of the movie when Binhgam finally hits his goal of 10,000,000 miles and gets a visit by the pilot as recognition that he has reached the ‘American Airlines 10 million miles status’. He stares almost expressionless at the pilot and says something like 'I’ve been imagining how this conversation would go for as long as I can remember and now it’s here I’m lost for words'. I think we are all so often guilty of being so focused on striving towards something to the detriment of living our lives along the way that I really felt for Bingham during this scene.

I found this film engaging from start to finish with so much to relate to that I highly recommend it, particularly to people who inhabit corporate world. I even found myself in one of those rare moods after sitting in an uncomfy for two and a half hours where I was wishing the film had lasted just a little bit longer. And so I even stayed for the credits and was lucky enough to hear the final song …

• With the exception of the famous actors, every person you see fired in the film is not an actor but a real person who has been laid off in real life
• Apparently Director Jason Reitman began writing the screenplay in 2002 when the US economy was booming but it was delayed while he worked on Juno (2007) and Thank You for Smoking (2005) - ironically America then plunged into depression and the movie turned out to be much more topical