Movies: Up in the Air

Director Jason Reitman is interested in the idea of likeable male protagonists who are cheerfully committed to their amoral jobs. In Up in the Air, our amoral protagonist is Ryan Bingham, played (of course) by George Clooney, who spends his life on aeroplanes and in hotels, touching down briefly in anonymous offices to fire poor saps whose spineless bosses don’t want to get their hands dirty.

It’s a life Bingham loves so much he rhapsodises at motivational talks about living with an “empty backpack” – without the tiresome anchors of work and family. His only goals are accumulating loyalty points as he travels and the occasional fling – a role which Alex (Vera Farmiga) is happy to play.

Up in the Air, as you would expect, is contemporary, thoughtful, and cleverly written. It’s a movie with a lot on its mind: how do we exist in a society that is so atomised and casual, where our main loyalty is to brands and jobs but not to people, where we struggle so often to make connections with those around us?

At one point in the film, Bingham confidently asserts “I’m surrounded by people”, and it is this line that is at the heart of the film – whether we trivialise them, uphold them or ignore them, our relations with others are what give our lives meaning. The recently unemployed, portrayed in some cases by the actual victims of the US‘s still rising tide of joblessness, reiterate a common theme that family is what is motivating them to do better, to realise their dreams.

But as the film makes clear, loved ones can fail us too. Other characters besides Ryan pay considerably more attention to their relationships, with mixed results; we see shaky and failed home lives despite the best of intentions. The characters’ lives are indeed up in the air, but we never really grasp something that helpfully resolves the uncertainty.

Up in The Air is like a late night philosophy conversation in the pub. It’s great fun, but you end up with some astute observations on the meaning of life that you can’t really work out what to do with.

The casting is pitch-perfect. George Clooney is as dry as always, and it’s great to see that as a young ambitious understudy Natalie (Anna Kendrick) receives credit and praise from the film on her own terms without having to knuckle under to the older male’s way of doing things, compared to the situation in say, State of Play. The next step will be to have a woman protagonist in Clooney’s role, without making it a “women’s movie”.

And Jason Bateman’s beard effectively hides the haplessness that we saw in Arrested Development to create Ryan Bingham’s disagreeable boss.

Whether you envy or despise Ryan Bingham, it’s clear that Up in the Air is one of those films that people will look back on as bringing out the spirit of our times. Go see it, and if you can find a “moral of the story”, be sure to let me know.

Up in the Air is in cinemas now.