A Great and Original Film

Rating: 10/10 (6 June 2018)

After watching this film multiple times, I decided to write a review. It is a film that works on so many levels. George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, who has the unusual service assignment of terminating people employed by other companies. (For a long time, I thought this was a service that did not exist in the real world until I was an African safari and met two gentleman who delivered this kind of service in South Africa.)
The title has a double meaning: Bingham is in the air virtually the entire year and has no significant connection to his residence. He has accumulated all his travel miles on American Airlines and he stays only in Hilton Hotels, so he has all sorts of privileges that only an elite handful of travelers ever achieve with these travel service providers. So, he is literally "up in the air" in the course of doing his job.
However, he is "up in the air" metaphorically. He has no roots to any community. He has an affair with a fellow frequent traveler, extremely well played by Vera Farmiga. He has no long-term, serious relationship, even with his own sisters. In fact, one of the great pieces of acting comes when Clooney/Bingham has to figure out how to coax his sister's fiancé to go through with the wedding. Clooney/Bingham finds this exceptionally difficult to do because he has never been close to having a relationship that would lead to marriage.
The most interesting part of the film is the juxtaposition of Clooney/Bingham's status as a receiver of very generous "loyalty" rewards with the role he plays in denying employees of many companies the reward for the loyalty they have shown to their organizations. He gets extra-special treatment, especially from American Airlines, but the employees who have given the best 30 years of their lives to their companies are brutally ushered out the door.
To me, this is the most thought-provoking and unique part of the film. This is not a remake of a 1940's or 1950's film, or even a 1980's film, because the sophisticated rewards programs from which the Clooney/Bingham character benefits did not exist. In fact, they were just being introduced into the marketplace in the early 1980's.
There are other great performances and subplots, including the mentoring relationship Clooney/Bingham has with a young professional very well played by Anna Kendrick. Jason Bateman seems quite authentic as Bingham's ultimate boss.
However, the center of gravity of the film is the character George Clooney plays, as only he can play it, and the many ways in which he presents a complex, multi-dimensional portrayal of someone who is "up in the air."