Up in the Air (Friday, December 4, 2009) (182)

I have found Jason Reitman's movies below average thus far in his career. Thank You for Smoking, Juno and this film, Up in the Air, are all very popular movies (or soon-to-be popular movies). They have sharp dialogue, a very wry sense of humor, a cynical view of the world and snobbish quality so elitists can love them, but commoners can feel in on the attitude as well. I think his style is not all that interesting and he relies on cliched techniques and shots to show *edginess*. Overall, I think he is not a great director of young actors (relevant here and in Juno) who are not able to rely on many years of experience and, as a result, over-do their roles.

In this film, Ryan Bingham (George Cloony) works for a company that lays-off employees for other companies. He spends 320-some days on the road all around the country in hotels, flying first-class from one city to another. He doesn't totally care about the work he does, but loves being unencumbered by friends, a wife or much of a life back 'home' in Omaha. His main passion in life (other than screwing women he meets at bars) is to collect frequent flier miles - really just to collect them and reach a magic number, not because he wants to go anywhere in particular.

At some point, the company he works for decides that it would be more cost-effective to lay off people by video conference, rather than sending Bingham to them to do it in person. He fights this, and subsequently gets a junior colleague, Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick), tied to his hip so he can show her how he does what he does. At 23, she is a humorless overachieving girl who is the architect of the cost-saving video-conference protocol. As the two of them travel together, he teachers her small things, like wearing slip-on shoes when going through security gates, to big things, like never apologizing to the person being laid off.

At some point, Bingham meets Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga) who apparently is a female version of himself - she loves spending time in hotels on the road, knows all the tricks of travel that he knows, is untied-down to friends or family and is interested in anonymous sex on the road. She makes him consider settling down as he falls deeper in love with her.

My first and most basic criticism of the film is that the script, co-written by Reitman and Sheldon Turner, is really terrible. Much of it makes no logical sense and much of it is so trite I feel like I've seen it ten times before. For instance, how on earth could a 23 year-old girl, fresh out of Cornell, get to a company and immediately change their entire business model to save costs. This is a very lazy writer technique of creating tension: She's always by the book and a technocrat; he's more of a lone wolf who is proud of his time-tested methods.

On top of laying off people, Bingham gives lectures at corporate events about giving up the things that weigh you down to free yourself and perform better at work. The problem is, we see him begin the speech at least three times, but never see him get to the point of the talk. So we don't really know what the lecture is about. Also - are corporations really paying him to tell their staffs that they should stop caring about their friends and family? That seems a bit unrealistic.

Clooney gives a totally solid performance. He has developed into an actor whose performances seem utterly effortless and totally believable. He is delightful to watch. Vera Farmiga is also good with ice in her veins and a come-hither demureness. For reasons I don't understand, Reitman has her in totally frumpy outfits with a frumpy hair-do, making her look as unsexy as possible - for a woman who is pretty sexy, I think. I don't understand this from a character point of view or a marketing point of view. Clooney is hunky and beefcackey - why not make her equally desirable? Her character seems totally comfortable with her sexuality - so it seems a bit far fetched that she would dress so matronly.

Next to the script, Anna Kendrick's performance is the worst thing about the film. She's awful. Whereas Cloony is easy and smooth, she is overdone and hyperactive and strikes as an overdone high school theater performance. She lacks any subtlety in her role and reacts in too big a way, to the point that her character is utterly unlikeable (making events later in the film work less because we don't care about her). She has one particularly terrible scene where she cries in the middle of a hotel lobby. It feels like rather than getting good advice and direction from Reitman, she was doing what she thought was appropriate - but it was too much and unbelievable.

More than a film story, this movie is a gigantic advertisement for American Airlines (Bingham's carrier of choice), Hertz (his rental car of choice), Hilton (his hotel of choice), American Tourister (his luggage of choice). I guess this is to be expected in such a movie - and it does work in this universe as he's trying to get mileage so he flies and stays in the places that will give him more Advantage miles, but I felt at times like it was unnecessary. There's no reason why we had to see the exterior of every Hilton hotel he stayed in - they all look about the same and I don't care if it's the Hilton Miami Airport or the Hilton Wichita Falls Airport or the Hilton San Antonio Airport. I don't think Bingham cares much either. That's the point of the movie.

The movie does not really interest me and seems predicable and lifeless. It has some pretty good energy at the beginning as Bingham is showing Natalie the ropes, but then goes pretty dead for the second and third acts. Reitman includes cool music and well-liked actors (like Zach Galifianakis) to cover up for some big elements - like a single fresh idea - that are lacking.

Stars: 1 of 4