Ah, that George Clooney is such a charmer. Even when playing a shallow shell of a man, whose job is to fire people for companies downsizing, he is still likeable and has more charisma than his victim. And he is the perfect person to play Ryan Bingham in Jason Reitman’s new movie, Up in the Air.
Ryan Bingham spends up to 255 days a year travelling by air, flying from hotel to hotel. The other days are excruciably spent at home. He is a writer, a convention speaker against how heavy we make our lives with commitments and chattels and a premium member of every frequent flyer program that exists.
He only dreams of reaching the 10 million-mile club. He meets a very charismatic travelling soul mate, Alex (Vera Farmiga), a wisecracking, sharp and sassy lady even the emotionless find hard to resist. Their scenes together are electric — especially when they compare cards and try to coordinate their diaries and cities for hook-ups.
And life couldn’t be smoother. Until hotshot new employee, Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick), works out how much the company could save if they fired people via teleconference screens from central offices. And Ryan’s world starts to take uncomfortable turns when he takes her on the road.
Natalie seems to bring out the fatherly and mentoring side of Ryan he’s never explored. And Alex is too attractive to resist. And when Ryan’s sister Julie is about to be married, he is dragged back into the smallest community he is part of — his family — and made to face the emotions he has neatly packed away.
Jason Reitman’s first two movies, Thank You for Smoking and Juno, took challenging characters and made them look for their humanity. Up in the Air, takes a similar flight route. Reitman used real people who had been fired amongst the actors to provide a funny and touching montage of human reactions. Reitman also understands irony, and tries to mix drama in with his comedy. It’s a difficult formula.
Clooney initially cruises through and then wrestles manfully with his character’s challenges. Farmiga is fantastic as Alex, Kendrick brings lots of wit and charm to her trumped-up corporate climber and Melanie Lynskey (sister Julie) grasps her moments beautifully.
The only problem is the story, like Ryan, seems to lose its momentum when grounded. The scenes when he is trying to reconnect with his family are at times poignant, but maybe a little predictable. And it never quite has the razor’s edge of Juno.
Thankfully, the story avoids any easy routes or emotional short cuts to the end and seems to click back into gear as it lands.
Similarly to landing after a nice long flight in business class, Up in the Air will leave you feeling pleasantly satisfied, happy you got through some minor turbulence — and grateful that suave Mr Clooney was the pilot.
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