NEWS JUNKIE POST
Jan 25, 2010 at 3:38 pmLiving in Limbo: Clooney Soars Up in ‘Air’
Getting fired is traumatic, but having George Clooney lower the boom may lessen the pain. In Jason Reitman’s captivating and timely Up in the Air Clooney stars as Ryan Bingham, an ax man for hire who flies and flies and then flies some more around the country doling out the pink slips employers themselves have neither the guts nor heart to hand out. He also shovels a well-rehearsed line of comforting bull that always includes: “Everyone who ever built an empire or changed the world sat where you’re sitting today.”
In a motivational pep talk to the termination team, Ryan’s callous all business boss, Craig Gregory (another spot on turn by Jason Bateman), noting record job loses, bank failures and busted businesses, says: “This is the worst time. This is our moment.” So we know pretty early on we’re in for a turbulent ride. But we’ll find out along the way there will be some fun and surprisingly moving moments, too.
In between firings, Ryan gives motivational talks instructing people on how to lighten life’s “backpack.” The guy travels light, preferring hotels and airport lounges to his drab studio apartment in Omaha, where in a voice-over, he laments, last year, he spent “forty-three miserable days at home.” No surprise: Ryan also prefers to fly solo than to fit a wife and family into his backpack.
Clooney–who exudes a tricky amalgam of confidence and vulnerability–pulls the audience into his world-weary web from the first firing. And things only go up and down from there. Ryan’s world–in the popular corporate parlance of the day–is about to be rocked as a company upstart, Natalie ( Anna Kendrick) offers a new plan that would save the home office time and money by allowing the termination specialists to wield their axes remotely via the Internet.
Forced with a life on the ground, the boss lets him embark on a final firing tour with Natalie along to learn the ropes. Natalie’s got her own problems: the twenty-something’s just been jilted by the beau she gave up San Francisco and a better job and moved to Omaha for and now with her whole life plan up for grabs she seeks advice from Ryan and his latest casual girlfriend, Alex, a fellow high-flying footloose traveler(the remarkable Vera Farmiga).
As if he doesn’t have enough to contend with, Ryan’s got his sister’s wedding to attend. The wedding–an ever present social albatross around the neck of the lonely and commitment phobic–is the only easy cinematic device Reitman succumbs to in this brilliant and original film. And given the witty and poignant family entanglements, we’ll forgive him that indulgence.
As Ryan begins to see his life through Natalie’s prism and as his feelings for Alex grow, he wonders if he can actually give up his freedom and the hollow goal of becoming the seventh person to achieve 10 million sky miles and forge a deeper, adult relationship. The audience is as intrigued with Alex thanks to a nuanced performance by Farmiga, whose sophisticated veneer hints at a soulful inner world within which Ryan could easily crawl and spend the next forty years.
Without giving anything away, I’ll tell you that Reitman and co-writer Sheldon Turner( in a script based on Walter Kirn’s 2001 novel) avoid the predictable cinematic path, letting the story and characters wind their way around a tumultuous ride that is ultimately more rewarding. Like real life.
With the unemployment rate hovering officially around 10 percent, Up in the Air captures the cultural zeitgeist more than any other film in recent years. Whether we’ve been fired or fear the ax in the offing, whether we’re unsettled in our relationships or just avoiding them altogether, there seems to be a collective 21st Century angst in the air. And with Air we don’t have to navigate that uncertainty alone.
Reitman continues to hone his cinematic birthright ( his dad Ivan is the director of ’80′s and ’90′s comic blockbusters: Ghostbusters, Stripes and Kindergarten Cop). He displayed a great sense of irony and sarcasm in Thank You for Smoking. He added an authentic sweetness in last year’s festival favorite and Oscar nominee, Juno. In Up in the Air irony and tenderness fly side by side.
Air has already won a bushel of accolades including: “Best Picture,” “Best Actor(Clooney) and “Best Supporting Actress” ( Kendrick) from the National Review Board. Reitman and Turner also won “Best Screenplay” honors from the National Review Board as well as Golden Globe and Critics Choice Awards. It will no doubt score a slew of Oscar nominations, but in a crowded and competitive field, will it soar above the even more decorated Avatar and The Hurt Locker? And the beloved Clooney– despite delivering his best performance to date– may have to yield to the equally deserving and oft-neglected Jeff Bridges. Clooney, after all, is already armed with a coveted statue for Syrianna , and that’s the way the Academy often plays it.
None of this matters to the audience, of course. We’re just along for the ride. “We are here to make limbo tolerable,” Ryan Bingham says of his profession. And with Clooney piloting this flight, it’s much more than that.
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It’s a delight to read any of your writings – Amy – I can’t wait to see the movie since I read your wonderful review. Clooney is supposed to be wonderful in this and I think you are ‘right on the mark’ when you say that since he has won an Oscar that it well will be Jeff Bridges’ turn for “Crazy Heart” – too bad we can’t have a TIE! Thanks again for another great review!