Up in the Air
Up in the Air stars George Clooney with the suave, rogue personae that he seems born to wear. As Ryan Bingham he is living the dream in a job that would make anyone else suicidal. It entails over 300 days of air travel per year but that’s not the really depressing part. Upon arrival at all those destinations he’s the ice man hired by faltering companies downsizing in a brutal economy. Ryan is unfazed by all this because it means never having to say “I’m committed”. Just when life couldn’t get any sweeter he meets Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga) a fellow jet setting itinerant. While Ryan is airborne with benefits his boss Craig Gregory (Jason Bateman) has discovered the financial benefits of letting the axe fall via the internet thanks to Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick) a twentysomething firebrand efficiency expert with ink barely dry on her magnum cum laude degree. Ryan refused to go into a tailspin without a fight and insists on taking Natalie on the road to ostensibly get a feel for the real job but in reality to somehow mastermind a return to the status quo. A family wedding and the break-up of a perfectly calculated match factor into Ryan’s wishing for something he should be careful about. Up In the Air is well grounded as a movie for our times with a jet smooth story line that makes this a pleasant but no necessarily safe journey.