Up in the Air (2009) - Jason Reitman

I like George Clooney. I'm not afraid to say it. I also like Brad Pitt. I like the characters they portray and the way they portray them. In fact, when I was younger, I always thought George Clooney was the Michael Buble of actors, as in, only older women wanted to watch him because he was hot and rockin the doctor thing on ER. Then I saw Out of Sight where Clooney plays across from Jennifer Lopez. I love that movie. Don Cheadle is hilarious. Either way, I fell in love with Clooney's characters with that movie. Ocean's Eleven and Twelve only solidified that feeling. With Brad Pitt too. The point is, since I feel like that, Up in the Air is CLASSIC Clooney.

The film starts off with Clooney's character, Ryan Bingham, explaining his lifestyle and his job. He fires people. They then show a series of people's reactions to being laid off, ending with Zach Galifinakis being funny, but serious. A pleasant side of him, by the way. Bingham's job is to fire people as part of a job termination sub-contractor. Companies hire his company to fire people for them, so they can avoid confrontation. He spends about 270 days a year traveling the country. And Bingham LOVES it. He couldn't choose a better life for himself. Then we see him at a hotel bar watching this woman go through her purse. The woman turns out to be Alex, played by Vera Farmiga, who becomes the love interest in the film. She also has a job that has her running around the country. They compare elite statuses and loyalty cards for car rentals and airlines. Funny scene, which eventually leads to wild sex in the hotel room. They set up of the next meeting when their travels will bring them together again.

You'll remember Farmiga from The Departed when she played Madolyn. She's beautiful and has an older look to her. Perfect for a target of Clooney's desires. The chemistry between the characters is wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. I was hooked the second they met. As for Bingham, they let Clooney look his age. Who is only 2 years older than Pitt, by the way. Anyways, the years of travel are shown heavily in his eyes. Dark sagging eyes. These characters just captured my attention and didn't let go. Then, enter Natalie Keener, played by Anna Kendrick.

Bingham gets a call from his boss, played by Jason Bateman, who I also love to watch, and he tells Bingham to come back to the home office in Omaha. Now, whenever the film switched cities, it gave you a shot of the city from about 30,000 feet. A hokie concept, but really cool transition when applied. Bateman has hired young Natalie who has an idea of how to reduce costs to the company. She proposes to fire people over a webcam, rather than face to face, effectively decreasing travel costs for the company by 80%. This scares Clooney, of course, who loves the fact that he doesn't have a home, except the hotel rooms he has on the road. He brings up to Bateman that the company can't do this because it doesn't work as well as firing someone face to face. Bateman feels he has a point and makes Natalie follow Clooney on his next series of assignments.

Now, Natalie was a necessary character for this film. I whole heartedly support that. However, Kendrick is awful, and here's why. She looks the part, easily. Young, dark hair pulled back into a pony tail and very professional looking. Then she opens her mouth and its like fingernails on a chalkboard. Just awful. Her delivery was poor and I don't think she was ready for comedy...even though the comedy in this film isn't the focus. Let's look at Kendrick's filmography, shall we? Hmm, some kids films...one straight to video...AH HA! Two Twlight films down and two to go huh? Kendrick plays the character Jessica in the Twilight series. Tsk tsk. Not too promising at all. Either way, there had to have been better choices, but the Clooney cool tended to keep my annoyance of her presence in check throughout the film, so my experience continued unhindered.

So Bingham and Natalie hit the road, with Bingham showing her the ropes of what it's like to fire someone to their face. She can't take it, especially after one woman says she's going to throw herself off a bridge. Then she meets Alex and Natalie's boyfriend had just broken up with her and she explains how she followed him to Omaha when she really wanted to go to San Francisco. Whatever, Kendrick's fake cry is awful sounding and I'm really at a loss as to how to explain it. Then she asks if Alex is with Bingham romantically and Bingham and Alex blow off the relationship and say it's just a casual thing. Natalie gets pissed that Bingham says its just casual, blah blah blah. The movie steers dangerously close to becoming a romantic comedy here, but recovers. But, that's one of the reasons why I love the way it's written. It makes you believe it's going to become a romantic comedy, but then gets back on course. It's wonderful.

Then Bingham and Natalie are told to try out the video termination. It doesn't quite work on a personal level, but is effective enough that Bateman says they're going to implement it anyway. So, they are called back to Omaha and Clooney makes a last minute decision to fly to Vegas to meet Alex and ask her to come with him to his sister's wedding. She agrees and they head off to Milwaukee for the wedding. They have a nice time at the rehearsal dinner and the audience can start to notice that Bingham is starting to fall for Alex and is willing to give up his lifestyle to settle down with her...steering towards romantic comedy again, as you can tell, but is saved by the groom, played by Danny McBride. My favorite role of his is obviously the special effects pyromanic from Tropic Thunder. Fucking amazing. He plays the hokey midwestern guy as well as he needed to. Anyways, he starts to get cold feet and Clooney talks him into going through with the wedding.

Because of the ending of this film, I'm actually to SPOILER ALERT right now. Don't read on if you care about the ending of this film. You've been warned.

So Bingham goes back to Omaha. He finds that the video terminations are in full swing and now he's going to have to live in Omaha. He is forced to settle down This makes him realize he wants to be with Alex. He flies to Chicago to find her and tell her. He knocks on the door and she answers. Then you hear her kids as they runs up the stairs behind her. Bingham looks crushed, starts stepping back as Alex's husband asks who is at the door. She closes it saying it was someone who was lost. BAM. I never saw it coming. I was expecting to see the great happy ending of a romantic comedy and they took it away AGAIN. IT WAS AWESOME. This was my favorite moment of the film and left me crushed and confused as well. My emotional involvement in these characters being together is just thown out of the window in all of 30 seconds. Awesome moment which truly makes for this being an amazing film. So Bingham goes back to Omaha. Bateman comes in and asks if there was any moment in his firings with Natalie where a woman led him to believe that she was going to kill herself. Bingham doesn't remember. Not, doesn't remember to save his ass, literally doesn't remember. Another great moment. Also, Natalie quit because she couldn't take seeing what she did to that woman any more.

HOLY SHIT. This film takes you up into the air with happiness and drops you like you were tied to an anvil from 30,000 feet. Beautiful. However, it doesn't let you hit the ground. Natalie ends up in San Fransisco applying for a job at another company. The man interviewing her says that he has a letter of recommendation that states that she is one they want to hire. The letter was written by Bingham. Awwwwwwww. But what about Bingham? How does his story end? Well, Bateman cancels the video termination idea and sends Bingham back out on the road. He got what he wanted, but only after he didn't want it anymore. Amazing. I know this has been done a hundred times before, but at the end of this film, the audience is actually left feeling sorry for him, because unlike romantic comedies, Bingham doesn't get the girl.

On a side note, this film is a GREAT view into the job market and the economic climate we live in. The people they fire are actually REAL LIFE people who were laid off. This is absolutely perfect. Near the end of the film, they ask these people how they got through it. How they survived the worst moment in their life and their answers really hit home. This could happen to anyone at anytime and how these people handled it is inspiring. Really wonderful touch to the film.

4.5 out of 5 Frequent Flier Miles. It could have been 5 if only Kendrick had been replaced. Oh well, it's an after thought in the scheme of this movie. Absolutely wonderful film with great emotional moments that take hold of every part of you. I recommend this movie to anyone. Absolutely anyone. Go see it as soon as possible. And I mean that.