FILM REVIEW: UP IN THE AIR
REVIEWED BY ADAM KAMIEN

IN Jason Reitman’s world there is no grey. In his latest film Up In The Air, he paints a bleak picture of dispassionate disconnect and hangs it all on social networking, emailing, text messaging and other nasty by-products of the free-market malaise.

But in Reitman’s world, the remedy is simple. Take a wife and get a dog, lest any man be an island.

Up In The Air is Reitman’s third film after Thank You For Smoking and Juno and tells the story of Ryan Bingham (George Clooney), a man who relishes his job flying around the US firing people.

He lives out of his carry-on luggage, in airports and hotels and keeps a sparse one-bedroom flat in Omaha, Nebraska, which he dreads.

He is a part-time motivational speaker, who extols his virtues of avoiding relationships and believes that “moving is living”.

But Bingham’s life goal of accruing 10 million miles is threatened when young go-getter Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick) develops a system that allows the company’s consultants to fire people via the internet rather than face to face.

Bingham takes Keener on the road with him to show her the ropes before the new system is rolled out and, before you know it, her youthful exuberance has Bingham questioning everything.

He meets Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga) in a hotel lobby and the pair hits it off immediately. But before long, their liaison becomes something more. Goran accompanies Bingham to his sister’s wedding in his hometown in Wisconsin, during which his eyes are opened to a way of life that he has eschewed with almost religious fervour.

The problem with Up In The Air is at its core. We are asked to believe the premise that companionship ameliorates the darkness of modern living and Reitman labours the point too. In one scene, characters who had been fired earlier, talk to camera about how family and loved ones got them through, when they thought all was lost.

For all the film’s subplot, interesting characters and social commentary, it is, at heart, extremely simplistic. Reitman also undermines the validity of his antihero by dismissing his reason for being with a sentimental broad stroke that would make the most whimsical romantic blush.

Tipped as the front-runner for his second Oscar for his performance in Up In The Air, Clooney’s range is tested in the film and while he is charming and likeable, as per normal, he struggles with the emotional gear-changes required of the complicated Bingham.

There is the usual host of Reitman buttresses, including Jason Bateman and JK Simmons, with a couple of terrific cameos from Young MC (remember Bust a Move?) and Sam Elliot. Danny McBride is also excellent in his standard every-man role.

At 32, the parallels between Reitman and Bingham are obvious. Reitman is single, records his every move and thought on Twitter, and is at a different airport most days for junkets, premieres, shoots and interviews.

No doubt he related to the protagonist of Walter Kim’s book of the same name, from which he and writing partner Sheldon Turner adapted the screenplay. But like Thank You For Smoking and Juno, this film’s cynicism exists only to highlight Reitman’s treacly romanticism.

Up In The Air is currently in cinemas.