Some of the Best Performances I've Seen in a While

Rating: 10/10 (25 August 2016)

Up In the Air follows a man, Ryan, who fires people for a living. Then one day a young woman, Natalie, shows up with ideas to change the company. When she receives Ryan's disapproval, his boss sends the two out to work together so Ryan can prove to her that the old way is the best way.
This movie surprised me. I haven't been really impressed by any of the three main actors in this movie before (although I haven't seen many of their movies either). And after seeing Anna Kendrick in Twilight it was refreshing to see her in a role that she both fit and excelled in. She pulled off probably the best performance of this movie. She plays the uptight fresh-out-of-school top-of-her- class girl who thinks she can change the world without experiencing it. I've seen plenty of characters like this, but Kendrick tops them all. She manages to bring humanity to her performance, and makes her very professional character seem very real. It's actually quite refreshing. As for George Clooney, I think he's okay in the movies I've seen him in. And yet he fits this character perfectly and performs it just as well. As for Vera Farmiga, she's also great. It's hard to talk about their performances as much as Kendrick, but trust me. They're great. Every other performance was solid as well, just not as good as these three.
The relationship between Farmiga and Clooney is, while not developed a whole lot, very natural. They have fantastic chemistry together, and their characters clicked with me and with each other right away. So normally when I would've felt their relationship was rushed, I instead felt the opposite.
The characters portrayed by these actors are great. Their well- written, interesting, and like I briefly mentioned earlier, human. These characters are built somewhat around stereotypes, but the writing brings humanity to these stereotypes. The dialogue is realistic and extremely well delivered.
Generally I don't really like conventional movies, specifically ones that are overly happy. But with Up in the Air it doesn't matter because everything else is so great and the happiness actually works and makes sense with the story.
I particularly loved the ending. It's pretty emotional, and I felt myself starting to tear up a little.
To top all that off, the soundtrack is pretty good. At least I thought it was. It fit the movie pretty well too.
My one and only problem was with Jason Bateman. It's not that he wasn't good in this movie, but more that he was kind of out of place for some reason. I don't know why. His role is very small, however, and it didn't affect the movie at all really. It was more of a personal thing than anything else.
Overall Up in the Air is a pretty perfect movie. The actors are extremely competent, the writing is great, the characters are great, the movie is happily conventional with reason, the soundtrack is great, and it's got a great, emotional ending. I could list it's praises for ages, yet it's problems are pretty much nonexistent. In the end I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this movie. If you haven't seen it, your missing out.