In theaters. Rated R, 109 minutes. Trailer.
Life is better when you are connected with people rather than living a vacuous corporate lifestyle without such connections. Such is the basic point of Up In the Air, a pretty good movie that is getting lots of talk as the Best Picture of 2009. I suppose that the main theme of the film is interesting or profound to some people, but to me it was so obvious that it undermined the impact of the film. Click below for more on UITA:
George Clooney stars as Ryan Bingham, a professional 'terminator' that flies around the country firing employees because the owners of those companies won't do it. He is comforted by the routines and special privileges afforded 'road warriors' and has a goal of reaching 10 million AAdvantage miles on American Airlines (something only 7 people have ever done). He avoids his family and views human connections as simply weight in your 'backpack' of life. After his boss (a slimy Jason Bateman) embraces a webconferencing idea from a freshly minted Cornell grad (Anna Kendrick) that will end his life on the road, he is faced with the prospect of his protective emotional casing being torn down. In order to familiarize Anna with the realities of firing people, Bateman sends the 2 out on the road. Along the way, Clooney finds his female counterpart (Vera Farmiga) and begins a potentially weighty relationship.
Co-writer/Director Jason Reitman (Juno, Thank You For Smoking) delivers on a thoughtful film with some interesting sequences and scenes, but as I've already mentioned, there is a bit of a 'duh' to the whole thing. Who doesn't realize that living like Bingham is shallow and ultimately sacrifices your soul - even a dumb movie like Wedding Crashers touches on this theme. Maybe this thing works for the elites on the Coasts for whom the embrace of family is foreign, but for me it fell flat. There are some mildly effective scenes showing the economic pain being felt by companies and the real people that are working and being layed off at them.
What did work well were the scenes with Kendrick - the cross-generational discussions were substantive and playful and mostly devoid of cliche. The multiple scene bit about Bingham's obsession with travel perks and efficiency were also enjoyable. My plot summary petered out, but I couldn't go further without ruining the film. The ending was intriguingly ambiguous, which I greatly appreciate, but my feeling was more of a 'who cares' than it was after other ambiguous endings (i.e. No Country For Old Men).
This is worth seeing, but don't go in with great expectations or you will be disappointed.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Up in the Air - B+
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3 comments:
I liked this one more than you and probably give it an A-. beyond just talking about the need for connection, i felt like it also dealt with the increasing fragmenting of our relationships via digital devices, so part of what it seems to ask is if this is almost inevitable. i liked the playing with the terms "adult" and "child". When Vera says, "i'm an adult, etc...", i thought that was great. i also thought the scene when Vera and Kendrick were discussing what they look for in men was a great, great scene. The best dialogue of the year not written by Quentin Tarantino. In my top 4 of the year.
Encroaching on 35, but not marriage, much of the movie rang very true. There were portions of the movie that I have weekly conversations about; especially about my married friends having poor sales pitches.
Loved it.
I like it - but lots of films are better this year. It falls far short of its hype and its designation as 'a film summing up our times'.
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