#029 - Up In The Air (2009)

Director: Jason Reitman

Writer: Jason Reitman & Sheldon Turner (from a book by Walter Kirn)

Runtime: 109 min.

George Clooney has mastered charm and detachedness. Bruce Wayne, Danny Ocean, Archie Gates, Michael Clayton. They all ran with Clooney's signature suave, the type of guy who you would think has a lot of good friends but not a best friend, has all the women in the world but doesn't love any, and likely doesn't even have any brothers, sisters, or parents that still check in on him. That's his character. He's like a bionic social tiger, preying on the weak, stalking his way to the top of the status ladder without breaking a sweat. He's been doing it for years. So who better to play Ryan Bingham, Up In The Air's leading man, who takes these concepts and turns them into craft. He's a little like T-1000. Incredibly successful, a shapeshifter who can be convincing in any environment, but in the end he's vulnerable to some very simple weaknesses. Oh, and neither is exactly the type to attract friends.

Ryan fires people for a living. He does it well. He's kind, gentle, professional. But his boss (Jason Bateman, who doesn't even attempt a joke, not one) wants to give some of the reins over to snappy little college grad Natalie (Anna Kendrick), who has sort of a modern steamroll approach to firing. Impersonal. Bingham balks. So the highers-up decide that he's going to take her on the road and show her the ropes. And thus, we have a storyline. So Ryan gives her the grand tour, a life which she finds to be more or less pathetic and sad. No friends, no emotions, no love. Her criticism is actually kind of odd, since her character professional is so robotic and rigid, but maybe that's the point. Underneath the other parts of the story, the theme is basic--two characters teaching each other lessons. He teaches her how to be more compassionate and sympathetic in the working world, she teaches him how to open himself up to interpersonal relationships. Which he does, with his fly-by-night, layover-lay of a girlfriend, Alex (Vera Farmiga, about as stunning and charming as she's ever been). After the midway point, the characters take their lessons and apply them, Ryan pursuing love, and Natalie pursuing new career approaches.

I apologize if that sentence was a little sterile or uninspired. I wanted to give a little run through about the storyline of the film, without being too specific or too bland, and without revealing too many details. Really I think the film was well made. The most outstanding parts to me were the interviews, the firings, the short sequences where Ryan and Natalie would sit face-to-face (or computer-to-computer) with the employees and let them go. They were quite touching, seemed to be very much based on empirical observation. And the progression of the story was executed almost flawlessly. It wasn't too fast or too slow, didn't jump around, it was easy to follow from start to finish.

But there's something about the movie that's making me view it, perhaps unfairly, with a negative bias.

It's already mid-December, and the Golden Globe nominees are being announced, and it's struck me during the process of writing this review that, really, this is the best that we have to offer so far? A middle of the road dramedy, well acted and well written that hits on its notes, but doesn't have a ton of re-watchability, and doesn't leave an overwhelming lasting impression (aside from the closing credits song choice--fantastic)? It's disappointing. In years past, we had films like There Will Be Blood have to take a close second to No Country For Old Men in every category, even though in any other year it would have been good enough to win the Oscar. We had films like The Dark Knight not even receive a nomination, because the Academy is too narrow-focused to include such "popcorn fodder" in its prestigious ceremony (oh, my bad, I forgot Christopher Nolan = Michael Bay). Brokeback Mountain didn't win. Babel, The Pianist, Traffic. All runners-up. The Prestige wasn't even nominated (crime of the century--hmm, the Academy just hates Nolan). Neither were Requiem for a Dream, Fight Club, Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind. Recent history is littered with films that were overlooked on Oscar ballots. This year, even though it's not completely over, it seems as if there's no discretion, and every moderately successful film is thrown into the spotlight as a potential Best Picture contender. Was Up in the Air a good movie? Certainly. It was well done, and certainly a step up on the "serious movie" scale for Jason Reitman, who tasted a bit of Oscar seasoning with Juno. But was it the best movie of the year? I don't know. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. But it reinforces the fact that "movie of the year" is intensely subjective, both in taste and time frame. This year was likely hit hard by last year's writer's strike (or at least I can tell myself that to make up for the lack of quality), but that doesn't overshadow the fact that sometimes Best Picture winners come in the back door, instead of fighting their way through the front. Personally, I'll let time be the judge, and not Academy voters who can usually only see as far back as November (except for you, Crash!).

That's not to say I'm discouraging you from seeing this movie. I really did enjoy it, and it had enough funny and emotional parts to satisfy both needs, so do yourself a favor and check it out. But when you're done checking it out, come back and tell me if you think it was truly the year's best--or if you think it could contend with some of those famous snubs I listed above.