movie review
Up in the Air
(M) Directed by Jason Reitman (Juno). Starring George Clooney, J.K. Simmons, Zach Galifianakis, Jason Bateman, Anna Kendrick and Vera Farmiga.
If there is one thing that Up in the Air confirms is that Hollywood runs on the highs and lows of relationships. The six Academy Award nominations for this movie highlight that the relational dynamics of this insightfully blithe comedy still resound strongly around Tinsel town.
The performance of George Clooney as Ryan Bingham is one of the stand out roles of his career and is deserving of a Best Actor Oscar nomination. The portrayal by Clooney of an emotionally vacant and detached human being vividly encapsulates the isolated desperation of individualised Western society. As Bingham flies around the country as the corporate man firing people, his greatest concerns are found in his frequent flyer miles and the speed at which he can get out of an airport. No concern is given to any of those that he fires, although the response of Bob (J.K. Simmons) and Steve (Zach Galifianakis) are pure cinematic gold! Perhaps only his boss Craig Gregory (played with quintessential sleaze by Jason Bateman) gives a finer example of just how soulless the corporate machine can be.
However, co-writer and director Jason Reitman, knows how to manipulate relationships to provoke an emotional response in his audience (see Juno as another example of this master at work). Reitman uses two women to breakdown Bingham’s insular world. When moonlighting as a conference speaker Bingham suggests that “The slower we move the faster we die”. Yet it is young Cornell graduate Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick) that effectively brings Bingham’s traipsing around the country to a halt as she introduces new technology to the business, which completes the de-humanising process of their work as they move to fire people via webcam. Sitting within the storyline is the Academy Award nominated Vera Farmiga who plays Alex Goran, Bingham’s love interest. The interplay between Clooney and Farmiga creates a truly impacting relationship in which the two characters use each other for what is essentially the innocuous purpose of physical intimacy with no strings attached. It is the development of this relationship that brings Bingham around from the shallow self-interested man that we meet at the beginning of the movie, to one whose heart has slowed to a place of genuine feeling for Goran.
The film draws to its climax with a power that catches viewers up into a 20/20 perspective of the relational void that exists in so much of our Western world. In the end Bingham begins to see life through the eyes of a man ready to make a connection.
In the end, the audience is left with the idea that relationships will always be central to life and can only exist through the sacrifice of love and respect of those involved.
This movie is not light but will keep you thinking past the final credits! Highly recommended.
