Up in the Air (15)

Dir. Jason Reitman, US, 2009, 109 mins

Cast:  George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick 

Review by Carol Allen

This is a contemporary take on the sophisticated romantic comedy - a very dry martini of a film with a bitter twist of lemon.  

Ryan (Clooney) has a job the like of which, if it doesn't exist, almost certainly will soon.   He's a company downsizer, who spends most of his life "up in the air", flying round America sacking people.  His days and nights are spent in the impersonal luxury of VIP airport lounges, first class cabins, hotels and rental cars, unencumbered by nothing larger than a small suitcase on wheels, and his sole personal ambition is to clock up 10 million frequent flier miles.  No wonder his apartment, where he spends a mere 43 nights of the average year, is as soulless as the hotel rooms where he normally sleeps. All this however is threatened when a bright young spark, Natalie (Kendrick) is hired by his ruthless boss, Craig (Jason Bateman), for her potentially money saving efficiency ideas of doing all of that firing by video link, thus saving all those dollars spent on travel.   But no - even though Ryan likes Natalie while disapproving of her methods, she is not his love interest in the film.  That would be tacky, wouldn't it?   His affection for her is more elder brotherly.  The woman who finally captures his heart is one whose lifestyle appears to match his own - the sophisticated Alex (Farmiga), another itinerant corporate high flyer. 

Reitman ( Juno and Thank You for Smoking ) is building up an impressive track record as a director and this film is slickly and skilfully made.  The clever editing of Ryan's alternative lifestyle is very effective in the smooth way in which, as a pampered frequent flier, he's ushered painlessly and swiftly through airport security - a procedure which for ordinary mortals is a sordid and unpleasant hassle.  The montages of Ryan sacking his victims are also effective.  Unlike the inexperienced Natalie, Ryan handles them with finesse and sympathy, almost though not quite persuading them that he's presenting them with a new opportunity.  

Clooney, who's an intelligent actor under all that charm and good looks, has a good script to work with that has a nice cynical, light touch without being too sour and he makes the most of it.   Despite the job, he charms us and gets us to root for the character.  Farmiga partners him well as the sexually direct Alex and they make a convincing and attractively worldly wise older couple.  The sequence of them picking each other up in a hotel bar via chat about car hire rates and the best credit cards to use is a sexy delight and the contrast between them and Natalie, the young, wet behind the ears know it all, works well. 

The film has moments of real perception and humanity along with the humour, as in the effect of some of the sackings on their victims and in a scene where Natalie, who's been dumped by her boyfriend and is being comforted by the couple, with unthinking condescension thanks the older Alex for "what your generation did for me", but points out that career satisfaction is not enough for her - she still needs a man.   It's both funny and sad and enough to make Germaine Greer fume.   Kendrick's is also a nicely realised character.  She's a bit of a pain in the neck but not unsympathetic. 

The film looks towards the end as though it's straying into conventional rom-com territory but then takes us by nasty surprise, which is good and in tune with the rest of it.  The moral of the story however, when Ryan is brought face to face with the emptiness of a life which before he found perfectly satisfactory, is a bit disappointing in that it panders to the simplistic convention that the only satisfying way of living is one involving spouse and babies and if you go for anything else, you will be miserable.   But otherwise this is a sophisticated cracker of a film.