‘Up in the Air’ is surprisingly satisfying and grounded
By CARY DARLING
“Up in the Air” could have been a crash landing.
With a director, Jason Reitman, whose last film, “Juno,” sometimes mistook cleverness for insight and a star, George Clooney, who sometimes mistakes cocky for craft, the result might have been an unsightly splatter of inside jokes, pop-culture posing and smarmy jocularity.
Instead, “Up in the Air,” based on the novel by Walter Kirn, is one of the freshest, most satisfying films of the year. Provocative but not pretentious, timely but not preachy, “Up in the Air” neatly tiptoes the line between drama and laughter, social commentary and romantic-comedy.
Clooney is Ryan Bingham, the go-to guy when downsizing companies decide a large number of employees need to be gone and are too chicken to swing the ax themselves. He travels from city to city, delivering the death blow of dismissal in a caress of prefabricated empathy and smooth-operator emotion.
But Ryan, a loner by choice whose main goal in life is attaining 10 million frequent-flier miles, suddenly finds himself in the corporate crosshairs. The company has hired Natalie Keener (the fantastic Anna Kendrick), a recently graduated upstart who has come up with a plan to save the firm a lot of money: Instead of sending Bingham out to fire people face to face, why not do it via video?
Bingham objects, saying the cocooned Natalie has no idea what those receiving the bad news of unemployment are going through and that they at least need a hint of human contact. But his boss (Jason Bateman) is so enthused about the plan that he sends Natalie out to learn the ropes with Ryan on what is meant to be his last swing across the country.
Simultaneously, Ryan strikes up a casual affair with Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga), a corporate shark in her own universe whose frequent-flier fantasies rival his. It’s a match made, if not in heaven, then certainly in the first-class departure lounge. But something funny happens: Ryan, who wants to be tethered to no one, finds himself emotionally tied to Alex.
With everything in his well- ordered world starting to turn upside down, Ryan begins to look at everything a little bit differently. And that’s where “Up in the Air” really takes off.
The script, by Reitman and Sheldon Turner, veers from humor to heartbreak without breaking a sweat. The interaction between Ryan and Natalie provides much of the film’s comic spark, yet the layoff scenes — especially when one man just sits there silently sobbing — are like swift punches to the gut, especially these days when such real-life horror stories are taking place all across America.