How much does your life weigh?

In fact, my life appears to weigh quite a bit, because it's taken me nearly a week to write a review of Up in the Air. Somewhere between midterms and a trip home to Virginia, I just haven't gotten around to sharing my thoughts until today.



As I said in my comments on the trailer, Up in the Air follows Ryan Bingham (George Clooney), a man who fires people for a living. Faced with new technology from recent college grad Natalie (Anna Kendrick) that could potentially eliminate the need for his life of travel, Bingham defends his techniques on a cross country jetset accompanied by Natalie. Somewhere along the way, he finds himself confronting issues he'd never encountered before, grappling with the idea that maybe he wants exactly what he has always dismissed as uninteresting and conventional desires in life.

As I gushed in an earlier entry, I have seen and loved everything Jason Reitman has ever filmed, and that now includes Up in the Air. Reitman takes us right inside the first class, frequent-flyer lifestyle of Ryan Bingham's travels, and in the same two hours, we begin to see how easily his tough exterior is penetrated as he begins to consider what life might be like with some attachments, some added weight to his backpack.

I wish there was some way Clooney could give back that Oscar for Syriana he received in 2006, as it gives a whole new meaning to the term "make-up award." That's the problem with awarding someone an Oscar just because they're overdue (many Academy voters have actually admitted to voting this way), a couple years later, they'll turn out a performance that is actually deserving and they won't win.

I've been somewhat hard on actors like Clooney in the past, because when you're that much of a movie star, sometimes it's hard to distinguish the performance from the way the actor is perceived in real life. Clooney is certainly guilty of playing himself in many roles, and I really thought that given the similarities Clooney shares with the character of Ryan Bingham, this performance would be no different. However, in my opinion, Clooney acted his heart out in this movie, and it may not be a total transformation (Like Penn's Harvey Milk or Day-Lewis' Daniel Plainview), but if anyone BUT Clooney had taken on this role, we wouldn't care about the character or believe him, and in that situation, the film would fall flat. It wouldn't work if Ryan Bingham were a one-dimensional, self-absorbed ass we couldn't care less about.

And if we're talking about performances in this film, the supporting ladies are just as integral to the film's success. I didn't know who Anna Kendrick was before seeing this film (her second or third movie?), but she brings to the table an unforgettable performance that is commanding, layered, and vulnerable. As a woman just out of college, Natalie is at a point in her life where we want to do it all--plan and nurture a successful career, meet someone, make a family, etc. It's not as easy as it looks, but Kendrick brings that sense of urgency to her character in a way that is extremely relatable. Vera Farminga, Clooney's love interest, is equally brilliant as Alex, a women just as driven and ambitious as Natalie, just 15 years older. The two characters collide in a very poignant way.

For Jason Reitman's third movie, Up in the Air is a captivating triumph. Neither drama or comedy, the film is a study of its characters' desires in life. It's also worth mentioning that Reitman handles the timeliness of his subject beautifully--portraying a man who fires people for a living in a time when more than 10% of Americans are out of work. His use of recently laid off Americans as extras for the firing scenes is particularly affecting. Reitman's direction is thoughtful and meticulous, letting the actors do the heavy lifting by not adding in bars of score to signal an emotional scene. It's a pleasure to watch him grow as a director, and Up in the Air is undoubtedly his greatest achievement thus far.