Review

Review Date: 20-December-09
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Juicy

Up in the Air (2009)

I am tempted to call Up in the Air a film about missing the boat except that would be the wrong travel metaphor. As the name implies, the correct image for Jason Reitman's funny-sad movie is an airplane since it concerns the flying habit of its protagonist and what that habit means for his life. Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) is a hired axe who jets from city to city firing people for bosses too chicken to do it themselves. He loves the job. An old pro after years of nomadic service, he exists in a comfortable vortex of hotel rooms and airport lounges where interaction with others is minimal and superficial. He is not a recluse or sadist but simply revels in having no roots, so much so that he gives lectures on the wisdom of tossing baggage like stereos, condos, and spouses. But over the course of a few weeks he learns the downside to being up in the air.

Ryan's realization comes about through unexpected encounters with women. The movie is markedly traditional, pitting a group of females representing the "mature" urge to be tied down against a middle-aged man who resists this urge played by one of the world's most notorious bachelors. Fortunately, this tinge of shallowness is overcome by the cast's ability to seem both idiosyncratic and realistic. Ryan begins a dalliance with another frequent flyer (Vera Farmiga) who appears to be as carefree as he is. ("I'm a sucker for simulated hospitality" she brags while comparing notes on gold card clubs and rental car chains.) Then he goes on possibly his last face-to-face assignment with a colleague half his age (Anna Kendrick) who has convinced their employer to conduct business through videoconference, thus saving on travel expenses. Ryan likes technology that helps him keep his distance but not newfangled ideas that threaten his way of life.

The young woman undergoes some personal trauma on the road and although she turns to Ryan for an elder's advice, her opinions have more impact on him than vice versa. This may account for his finally deciding to attend his sister's wedding and, in an unprecedented move of semi-commitment, asking his new lover to come along. Now with each flight and landing he is tying a small knot to someone else, and it is not as disagreeable as he thought. But can a man approaching the age of grandfatherhood really change direction if he has avoided connections all his life? If everyone else has woven their cocoons of security and community without him, where does he fit in? Ryan gets an answer to this question, as biting and cold as the wind at 30,000 feet. The message of Up in the Air — obvious, but told in a humorous and sometimes sexy way — is that you can't go home again if you never made a home to begin with.

Copyright © 2009 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.