Directed by Jason Reitman. Screenplay by Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner. Released by Paramount Pictures.
I know there are still people out there that love airports, but I’m not one of them. Sure, I love to travel, but the process of actually getting from outside the airport to your seat in the plane – at least in the US – seems to be designed to discourage people from flying if they can help it. And, of course, even after you get to your seat, the comfort and service you encounter are, as often than not, enough to discourage flight even if the airport itself wasn’t such a hassle. I prefer to drive if at all possible, even these days, when I don’t actually own a car.
So it’s to the credit of the filmmakers of Up in the Air that the film paints a life in the skies as an appealing option. In the film, George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a jet-setting businessman hired by companies to break the news to their employees that they are being laid-off. He measures his self-worth by the number of Frequent Flyer miles he’s able to rack up, and does speaking engagements on the side in which he extols the virtues of living a life with as little baggage – physical and emotional – as possible. He keeps up a relationship of convenience with a like-minded woman named Alex (Vera Farmiga, who is fantastic), and keeps in minimal contact with his two sisters, but otherwise he is content to be alone in his world of first-class comfort.
His comfortably detached life comes under threat, however, when his firm hires Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick, also great), a bright young Ivy League grad who convinces management to institute a system of webcasts in lieu of flying around the country. For reasons that are never really explained, Ryan earns one last chance to prove his worth by flying around the country with Natalie, to show her how the business works.
Up in the Air has gotten wide-ranging praise, and is thought to be a leading contender for the year’s Best Picture Oscar, but its flaws are readily apparent. I didn’t understand why Ryan and Natalie would be sent out on the road together, and for that matter, I didn’t understand why Ryan’s firm would be worried about the costs of travel to being with (in that situation, expenses would be payed by the clients, right?). Jason Bateman gets too much screen-time for his one-note performance as Ryan’s boss, a character which is unnecessary anyway. There are a couple of key scenes that are far too predictable if not downright cliched. Danny McBride is in it. And the last fifteen minutes play as if the filmmakers were struggling for a way to end the film.
Yet it’s also a compassionate and moving film in spite of those flaws. It’s a rare corporate-produced film that’s willing to show what has become corporate America’s singular focus, which is to devise ways to pay people less money in exhange for more work. And it’s the first Hollywood movie since perhaps The Pursuit of Happyness to consider what it’s like for someone not to have a job. Reitman gives significant screentime to the employees that Ryan fires, some of whom are not professional actors but real people who have recently lost their jobs. If some of their reactions seem like something from a movie, most of them nonetheless feel honest and even heroic in their struggle to retain dignity in an impossibly undignified situation.
The result is a bittersweet undercurrent that resonates throughout the movie yet also co-exists somewhat uneasily with what is basically another Midlife Crisis Movie, a genre that is becoming increasingly recognizable and numerous enough to spawn its own cable channel, located somewhere on the dial between Lifetime Movies and Spike. I’m not quite sure how to reconcile the stark honesty of people getting fired for no reason with the diverting but ultimately fatuous self-pity of an affluent man who is fretting the loneliness he has zealously maintained throughout his adult life. Are those employees being given a forum for their grievances against corporate America, or being exploited for the sake of offering up topical Oscar bait?
I suppose when all is said and done, it doesn’t make much difference. If a man gives a million dollars to charity, that charity gets the money regardless of the man’s motives. Along the same lines, this movie shows us compassion that we don’t see in too many movies, and despite my misgivings, it is still an entertaining and effective film.
Gone Elsewhere 
Just got back from this, and I’ll have a full review on Go-Go-Rama tomorrow, but just wanted to jot down a few things.
Impecccable, lovely. This is the kind of film that makes me kvell, as I just luxuriated in the structure. The ending, which seems to be of some controversy, struck me as perfect. The writing sparkled, particularly two brilliant scenes–when Clooney and Farmiga meet and go over their membership cards, and the scene in which Kendrick pours out her troubles to Clooney and Farmiga. That sound you hear is me purring.
The central conceit is flimsy, I’ll admit. I once worked for an outplacement firm, so I can vouch for some of it, but we didn’t fire people. I’m not sure that’s a real job, and Brian is right–a client would hire the firm because they provide a personal touch and travel expenses would be billed back to the client. A cheaper firm would do it by teleconference.
But I bought the spirit of the thing. Flying is a headache, but not necessarily when you’re on an expense account and flying business class. And it’s not just airports, it’s hotels. My father, who has been a traveling salesman his entire career, loves hotels. I think he would live in one if he had the chance. I’ve only traveled for business once, and after initial balking (why do I have to fly to Atlanta?) I loved it–staying in a nice hotel, getting room service, watching Monday Night football at the hotel bar, all payed for by the company–I could get used to that.
But what I liked most is that it’s smart. How ingenious to have Clooney having to argue in favor of marriage to his brother-in-law when we know he’s against it. Or how Farmiga’s character was handled. For most of the film I wasn’t buying her–she was an idealized version of a fuck-buddy that any guy would love. I knew it wasn’t all it seemed, and then my questions were answered decisively.
I don’t know if it’s my favorite of the year–it’s right there with The Hurt Locker and A Serious Man–but it’s damn close.
This isn’t opening in Australia for a few days, but I was in a bookstore yesterday and saw the original novel on sale and purchased it. If I get the time I’ll try to read it over the next few days and then go see the film which would give me the rare chance to see a novel-to-film transition.
I haven’t read the book but according to an article in Entertainment Weekly the two main female characters are wholly the creation of the screenwriters, and not in the novel, which is quite a change.
After seeing this movie, the review feels much more cynical and…insulated than it did on first perusal.
I, too loved this movie and also luxuriated in the tone of the piece. The writing is impeccable if not nearly brilliant and Slim is right…the scene where the young girl pours out her heart to Clooney and Farmiga is a class in editing and pacing and writing and reactions. It’s economies of scene and placement and structure are dazzling.
I love how it’s set up perfectly to reveal how impersonal it is to fire someone over teleconference. I mean…we know it…but where it occurs and how we see the person is prone to let go a bit more and maybe…lose sense of what they’re doing enough to…cry…I loved it, along with, again, the directing and pacing.
I thought Danny mcBride was great and really affecting when he comes back to his bride and kudos to the filmmakers for not overselling that moment and just letting it unfold…
An interesting choice Reitman makes when McBride does come back, and for the wedding, he has his cameramen affect a ‘handheld’ videocam vibe…and once their back in the airport right after the song, it goes back to normal. I really liked it. It was subtle but noticeable and a really interesting directing choice…
And it never even occurred to me…until he left the conference…just what she was…and then it hit me and it all came together and I have to say I have absolutely no problem at all with the ending. Isn’t this the ending most people wish Hollywood would make when they see the treacly normal endings to dramedies?
All that being said…this isn’t anywhere near a best picture the way Inglorious Basterds is in sheer filmmaking verve and reveling in the written word.
Kudos to what sounded like the awesome Elliott Smith in the song at the high school…great to hear.
Care to elaborate on this point?
I agree, and I thought these were the best scenes in the film. But I didn’t really see how these scenes tied in thematically with Clooney’s character arc. I suppose I did a poor job of explaining this, but that’s the underlying issue I have with the film’s central conceit; it feels cynical to me to put these scenes in a movie that otherwise is fairly standard Hollywood fare.
But as I also acknowledge, it maybe doesn’t really matter.
I felt each story was addressed well enough that we could take a moment and watch the end of an employee’s life unfold over teleconference and just exist in that moment of what these people do and what it’s like for Clooney to watch this girl he’s become friends with get slammed on her first true test of firing someone without any guidance.
When he says ‘Do you want help’ I felt it was as though we were watching her go through that with Clooney…and so we’re participating in what it’s like for him to watch her go through this.
What I thought was not necessary was the entire side story with the woman who committed suicide. Didn’t need it. And I felt it would never come up for a company like that to ever deal with people’s choices after their firings…
Via Wells, I come across a Jason Reitman interview where he slams Michael Mann’s The Insider as if it’s some kind of 1950s do-gooder, in response to criticism from Armond White:
Credit to Wells for gently explaining how Reitman misread that movie. My own impulse was to suggest that Reitman probably watched Casablanca and thought “Nazis bad! That’s so boring!” I’d guess that the odds that Reitman has actually seen The Insider are fairly slim.
Furthermore, this is kind of a dickish move. He obviously doesn’t know who Armond White is or what his criticisms of him are, but that doesn’t stop him from attributing a point of view to White anyway. Of course, the interviewer is to blame here also, for presenting sensationalistic quotes without any context, obviously wanting to start a catfight between White and Reitman (and then blaming the editor for it, natch).
But more to the point, I think this betrays an underlying fatuousness that I’ve found in Reitman’s films. His movies address prominent social issues, but they do so rather superficially, using them as a backdrop for somewhat conventional stories but without adding any particular point of view. Can anyone tell me what the point of any of his three movies actually are, relative to the prominent social issues that they’re set against (Thank You for Smoking especially is a god-awful mess in this regard)?
Furthermore, let’s be blunt: only a real coward is afraid to take sides. You can’t be a satirist without having a point of view. Reitman’s stated goal here is consistent with any middle-of-the-road corporate venture out there – the need to appear that they’re being serious but without facing any accountability for the substance contained therein. Hence we get network news that contains no news, and films that pretend to be about corporate layoffs but are really about George Clooney being sad and lonely.
So, fuck him. Michael Mann made a movie with The Insider that tried to tell us why the world is the way it is. Reitman makes movies that note that things are that way, and then asks you not to worry so much about that and focus on the movie stars. His movies are only “polarizing” in the sense that some people see through this bullshit, and some people don’t.
Certainly agree on TYFS. As I posted in the original review thread, the more I thought about the less sense it made and that’s what really killed it as a satire.
I remember Reitman being interviewed for that film on an Australian TV show and he was criticising anti-smoking groups who were trying to end smoking in public places because it wasn’t impinging on non-smokers. When the interviewer asked about the issue of passive smoking, he basically didn’t have an answer.
For all that, I’ll be seeing this film when it comes out here. I’ve read the novel it’s based on and it’s quite a good book; generally sharp and incisive. It’s not really a scathing critique of the lifestyle and system Ryan is a part of as he’s the actual narrator of it and it’s told from his point of view, which is disenchanted, jaded and part of this system and society he loathes. I think that pov is what makes the book effective; you see the criticism of the culture come through despite the perspective.
I saw this tonight and while I had a couple of issues with it, it’s an A-grade film.
It took me a little while to get into it but from the terrific scene where Clooney pretends to be someone being fired by Kendrick through teleconference in Bateman’s office, it had be captivated.
As JS says, it’s great strength is that it’s very smartly done. I especially liked how the Clooney/Kendrick relationship developed and it avoided the easy pitfalls of Clooney trying to undermine her through being obnoxious. Instead, while his motivation to continue with the old process is self-serving, he does demonstrate that his way does have clear advantages.
(potential mild spoilers)
But my favourite part of the film was how Farminga’s character was handled. I had the same reaction as filmman that once he arrived at her doorstep (and before she opened the door) that it all suddenly became clear. The followup phone conversation was a great scene because as cruel as Ferminga’s character was, she was basically right in much of what she was saying. Having a character like that be written so truthfully and honestly is very rare to come across in films these days.
I did have a few issues with the film in the closing stages. I thought Clooney abandoning his motivational talk like that was very lame. Even factoring in the mindset he was in, he’s too much of a professional to do that; either he would’ve abandoned it beforehand or done it through clenched teeth. A rare case of the film taking the easy option.
And I thought the scene at the very end with the montage of sacked people talking about the importance of family was weak and corny, especially as the film had managed to demonstrate the argument that no man is an island without such blatant speechifying and moralising beforehand.
But despite this, it’s the best film released in 2009 I’ve seen to date.
Now having read the novel and seen the film, yeah there were certainly some significant changes.
(warning: book/film spoilers)
There is a character called Alex that Ryan hooks up with in the novel as occurs in the film but she’s totally different to the film Alex; her key revelation is that she is in fact one of the people who Ryan fired and in a manner of speaking became obsessed with him.
There is no character like Natalie and there is no plot based around bringing teleconferencing into the company. The plot in the novel is that Ryan is on the verge of leaving the company because he’s tired of the business.
There is a character quite similar to Jason Bateman’s in the novel although there he is of much lesser significance.
Ryan’s relationship with his family is pretty similar in the book, although covered in more detail.
There are inevitably minor details that are changed; like when Ryan reaches his frequent flier landmark his prize is to have a champagne with the company CEO; in the film it’s with the pilot.
Perhaps most significant of all is that at the very end of the novel Ryan (who’s the narrator of the book) suddenly reveals that he’s in very bad health and doesn’t have long to live. I was expecting that to be the end point of the film and was surprised when that didn’t occur.