Up in the Air (2009)

2 years ago

Up in the Air (2009)

JUST SOMEBODY WHO’S LOST

by Chris Cantoni

I really like Jason Reitman’s films. Thank You for Smoking, Juno, and now Up in the Air? I connect to these movies. And not just the movies but the people too! It’s not that I like them all or think they’re super slick. But Reitman’s characters just come with a deep sense of sincerity I don’t often see in movies.

I don’t know another way to describe it. I just believe that these people are true. Watching Up in the Air, I forgot George Clooney was George Clooney and started thinking of him as Ryan Bingham. Maybe that’s just because he’s “playing himself,” but he’s reflecting a growing population of our country who have let go of hope in the wake of our increasing technologically-induced isolation and economic collapse.

That sounds a little broad. Up in the Air is the story of Ryan Bingham, a man contracted to travel throughout the country the majority of the year to lay off employees of various companies. He’s in the air over 300 days a year and likes it that way, a life permanently on the go, simplified, unattached and uncomplicated. His one goal in life is to reach the Mount Olympus of frequent flier miles: 10 million. When a hot young upshot, Natalie Keener (relative newcomer Anna Kendrick) proposes video-conferenced terminations that would make his job obsolete, Ryan takes her on the road to show her how it - it being destroying people’s lives - really works.

Featuring actual laid-off employees asked to say what they did or would have said when being let go, Up in the Air is nothing if not timely. Had it come out just a couple of years ago, it would be quickly forgotten as one of those quirky small George Clooney movies he likes making so much. But it isn’t two years ago, hundreds of thousands of people have been laid off in that time, and millions go each month trying to figure out how to make it to the next one. We are a country in limbo, suspended (wait for it) up in the air.

A light hearted drama, but not a dramedy, Up in the Air is one of those films that leaves you thinking about a lot of things without telling you how to think. Ryan Bingham is a man whose life is devoid of attachment, devoid of love, disconnected from everyone and everything, even as he begins a tenuous relationship with another frequent flier, Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga). And even though the plot has him fighting a new technology that would further sever personal interaction, he is speaking to us as we remove ourselves from others through greater and greater distances- An email instead of a phone call; A text message instead of a smile. I don’t think these technologies are bad. I use them all the time. But I’ve been there, avoiding confrontation, avoiding awkwardness, losing my ability to connect with another person in any real way.

These days it’s something we either consciously fight against or just ignore. Bingham is ahead of us, but that also puts him behind us. And while at first we admire his drop everything and go attitude, his ability to pack his life into a carry-on, we soon realize he doesn’t have the empathy that lets us react to the film in the first place. The broken-hearted employees and the loved and lost relationships around him are all alien. He can’t touch them, he can barely even sense them. We always talk about being “grounded,” having a solid foundation, etc, so it’s a straightforward analogy to have this disaffected man hate being on the ground.

We want so badly to like him. And we DO like him! It’s George Clooney! The man bleeds charm. But seeing Clooney as Bingham here makes you worry its how the real Clooney is, a man who could be with you but never love you, who you’d pour your secrets into but he wouldn’t listen, whose eyes would never go deeper than the wall just inside.

Up in the Air is about how we love people. The tagline of the film, a man looking to make a connection, is a lie. It’s not a film about connections, it’s about barriers, disconnections, keeping away from people, and not telling us if that’s a good alternative. It’s about being lost in the clouds and how hard it is in this life to find solid ground. The film is silently screaming at us, or maybe just at me: People are always difficult, and will disappoint you, but don’t turn off, don’t turn off, don’t turn off! Real is better than numb, so we must strive to keep something under our feet.