A self-contradictory take on romance in the (post-) modern world

Rating: 5/10 (31 December 2009)

Dealing just with thematics and ignoring the fact that, throughout, I found watching the film to be trying (enough in itself, of course, to warrant a poor rating), Up in the Air doesn't work: it's disingenuous and self-contradictory.
Clooney's character is positioned at the outset as sharp and appealing, his ideas apt with respect to the world in which we see him engaged. Yet, contradicting itself tonally and explicitly in terms of its two dueling ideologies (alienation versus connection), pulling the proverbial rug from under its protagonist's feet, Clooney – falsely – endorses his sister's marriage and "transforms" into a man who longs for what he previously had with such conviction shunned. Ultimately, it comes down, not to content, but to the way Reitman deals with the material. Many great films laud human connection as invaluable, but Up in the Air doesn't make me buy its central character's arc or its confused conclusion.
Ryan Bingham (Clooney) speaks with his sister's fiancé, Jim, played by Danny McBride, and effectively convinces him to go through with the marriage with Julie despite Jim's legitimate (and convincing) doubts. The scene is not, as Reitman intended, indicative of some kind of maturation in Bingham – it's a self-contradiction. The scene following this betrays the film's bias and cues us emotionally; the sweet contempo-folk track and the loving kiss and make-up between husband-and-wife-to-be work to posit the marriage as authentic in the eyes of the film-text: it's a necessary affirmation of true love. Reitman plays this scene as warm and sweet; truly, its an acquiescence to the cultural status-quo that clashes with what the film has presented so far about marriage and relationships, as well as with Bingham's character as we've come to understand him. Marriage is "adult" and real, says the film, as opposed to Clooney's philosophy, which it dismisses ad hominem as "childish" rather than dealing with in any substantive way. Bingham ought to "grow up," says his young co-worker Natalie (Anna Kendrick). Case closed.
So, we're presented with conflicting images: that of Bingham's (and the film's) endorsement of his sister's marriage; and that of relationships in general as transient and contrary to one's own interests (Alex, Bingham's sister, Natalie: all in varyingly failed or unhappy relationships). But nothing is done to either reconcile the tension between these or make any sense of them. They simply exist in the film alongside each other, despite their mutual exclusivity. Additionally, we can't understand why Bingham shifts camps. His sudden move from self-aware, post-modern isolationist to pining romantic is jarring and forced rather than organic. This might have been fixed were there some genuine chemistry between Clooney and Farmiga. A fifty year old man doesn't easily change in a major way how he lives his life, especially when he's as entrenched in his lifestyle/work as Bingham is. Clooney's interest in Alex (Farmiga) isn't enough to be convincing. How can he be willing to change everything on the basic of a few hot nights and some cute texts? (Armond White touches on another crucial flaw with the film in discussing this: "...this movie looks wretched. The lack of emotional rapport between the actors starts with each one's poor lighting and bad angles.") The film simply makes an arbitrary value judgment without sufficient textual support: marriage and relationships are, innately, more meaningful and important than one's career. Apparently, for Reitman, this is a self-evident fact, needing no convincing elucidation.
The film presents Bingham as having, in the most facile sense of the word, "matured" by the film's end. He's rejected his "empty backpack" philosophy, but, sadly, can't have the woman he wants. The monologues by terminated employees at the end has one saying something to the effect of: "In the end, it's my family – my wife and kids – that are what matter to me most." Rather than being complicated, Up in the Air is simply confused. The first two acts of the film are spent showing (1) how problematic relationships and marriage are and (2) how lucid and believable Bingham's philosophy actually is. In way the film presents his sister's marriage (and with lines like the above), Up in the Air is shown to endorse an institution that it simultaneously shows to be non-functional. Clooney's final words indicate that he's alone for the long haul, forever "doomed" to the air. But, if anonymous-terminated-employee as well as Bingham's own sister and Danny McBride can have a meaningful, "good" marriage/relationship, why can't Bingham? It doesn't add up. Interestingly, the film begins with him being far more satisfied that he is at the conclusion. Yet, perplexingly, the new ideology (that leaves him less happy) is the one the film endorses, and the lifestyle of alienation (the one that, if not leaving him happy, at least led to his being in some way satisfied – perhaps the best anyone can be said to do) is dismissed offhand as childish.
A better film might have thoughtfully dealt with the tension between a desire for connection and the impossibility of genuine, lasting connection in post-modern, commodified society (a society in which Clooney has very effectively ingratiated himself and of which he has become, through his work, a somewhat fearful, but very real, emblem). Instead, Up in the Air is simply symptomatic of said desire. Because Up in the Air is so bafflingly blind to the relationship-problematics it outlines within its very plot content, it thus fails even to be ideologically reassuring, because, by endorsing what it at the same time show to be false – and disingenuously forcing its protagonist to do so as well – the viewer emerges from the theater confused rather than assuaged. There are films that convincingly and entertainingly deal with the importance of family and romantic love (from just this year, both Away We Go and Funny People), but Up in the Air is not one of them.