Clooney brings odd dignity to quirky character
Up in the Air, Montreal-born director Jason Reitman's third feature film, is approaching lofty heights on critics' year-end lists while remaining firmly grounded in its subject matter. The film, based on Walter Kirn's novel, has the luxury of landing the very bankable George Clooney in the lead role. And he brings much more to this role than his iconic handsome face.
Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a career transition specialist whose job belies his role of working for a firm that is contracted to dismiss, in face-to-face meetings, employees who have become redundant. He travels more than 300 days a year and consequently doesn't really have a home or meaningful attachments. Bingham doesn't mind. His life fits oh-so-precisely in the carry-on with which he travels (he never checks baggage) while his prized travel reward card remains ever ready in his wallet.
The initial complication for Bingham is that a young new hire, Natalie Keener (her name says it all), played by Anna Kendrick (Twilight), is set to ground the workforce to save on overhead costs. Her plan calls for the messy task of job termination to be tidied up through the use of video teleconferencing.
Bingham wins a temporary reprieve from the plan's implementation, but is given the responsibility of mentoring Keener on the road to show how the job is accomplished in person. The ensuing personality and generational clashes contribute to much of the laughter in the first reel.
Bingham's streamlined travel rituals are apt metaphors for his philosophy of life. He tells Keener that getting through security goes faster if she avoids lining up behind old people—"Their bodies are littered with hidden metal"—and advises her to follow travel-efficient Asians instead. "I stereotype. It's faster," he explains.
Bingham articulates his beliefs in a motivational speaking sideline where he tells listeners, "Make no mistake, your relationships are the heaviest components in your life… The slower we move the faster we die… We are not swans; we are sharks."
However, Bingham is forced to reconsider the efficacy of his words when he finds himself falling for Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga) an attractive road warrior who espouses the same lifestyle and philosophy as he does. The trajectory of this storyline, thanks to Reitman's and Sheldon Turner's script, is anything but predictable.
One reason the film works well is that it contains numerous tensions and paradoxes subtly held in balance. Serious subject with comic treatment is a signature style for Reitman, who also directed Thank-You For Smoking and Juno. For instance, Bingham's company's recent success is directly due to the faltering economy.
Later in the film, another paradox emerges when Bingham is put into the position of selling his future brother-in-law on the merits of relational commitment, when clearly he doesn't buy it himself. And yet, when he's forced to consider the truth of his own words, he suddenly appears vulnerable. This quality is made all the more plausible by Clooney's superior acting in this sequence, and becomes a believable complement and counterpoint to Bingham's self-assured persona which dominates the early part of this story.
The need to be relational asserts itself gradually on Bingham, though it has not been entirely absent all along. While Bingham is a hatchet man, he is able to afford in those termination moments some human dignity that others can't.
The dismissal scenes feature the reactions of numerous employees—some enacted with humour; most, however, with pathos. These scenes are made more poignant when one discovers that, with few exceptions, these are cameos of real people who actually experienced job loss and who initially spoke to the camera believing they were part of a documentary.
Moreover, it's refreshing to hear these same individuals relate, later in the film, that what got them through their dark night of the soul was the support of family and friends.
It's in this truth that theme and storyline intersect. We are relational creatures. We were not meant to be alone. Ryan Bingham's discovery is one we all need to make if we haven't yet. This film is a delightful conduit to deliver such an important message.
Rating: 3.5 million out of 4 million frequent flyer miles.
This film is rated 14A in Canada due to strong language and brief sexuality.
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