Up in the Air (2009)

Jason Reitman had originally intended an adaptation of author Walter Kirn’s 2001 novel about a flight-hopping “career transition counselor” to be his directorial debut, but other movies came to the four and only recently has he been able to complete his pet project. The production delay has provided fortuities for the young Reitman (son of Ghostbuster’s director Ivan) in two major ways: Firstly it allowed him to hone his directing techniques in other quirky films like Juno and Thank You For Smoking. Second it allowed his film to come out in a time when perpetual layoffs have come to take a real affect on the American psyche (in fact Reitman liters his film with actual laid off workers playing the men and women our lead characters fire in the course of the story).

George Clooney is our central character Ryan Bingham, a man who fires people for a living and luxuriates in an existence free from emotional attachment (he even works periodically on a self help book about how to avoid commitments in life). This character is a little reminiscent of the one Clooney plays in Micheal Clayton, somewhat estranged from his family, and highly skilled in an unpleasant job. Tonally of course the film is lighter then Clayton, yet melancholy. There are a number of themes in the film but those having to do with Bingham’s realizations about his loneliness in life, and how he’s failed to ’man-up’ are the ones I felt drawn to. I’d even place this film in that somewhat hard to defined quasi-genera of men-reluctantly-learning-to-face-up-and-try-to-be-men films, which runs the spectrum from the fatherhood subtext of Matchstick Men, to Judd Apatow’s various man-boy comedies. I Should point out that all the women are really good in this film too, Vera Farmiga as Clooney’s love interest, the always intriguing Melanie Lynskey, Amy Morton who does a lot with a small part as Clooney’s older sister, and of course Anna Kendrick, who I’ve developed a crush on. Solid film, creative, sufficiently subtle, of course timely, and by far my favorite of Jason Reitman’s films to date. Thumbs Up.