Down in the dumps at Up in the Air.

Rating: 1/10 (20 February 2010)

At an hour and forty minutes, but feeling like 3 hours, this film is at least an hour too long. The film is made up of wodges of interminable dialogue, with a largely static camera focused interminably on Clooney's vacant grin. The action is inter-cut with air to ground shots of the various cities featured in the Clooney characters never ending flights around the country. These shots do not illuminate either plot or location, and one suspects they are a handy way of stretching thin material.
Almost every character in the film appears to have been cast for, at best, plain looks, and at worst for ugly. Whether this is a sop to the vanity of the lead, or whether the director believes this lends some sort of realism to his film is unclear. Either way it is no incentive to like or care about anyone one sees on screen. I am not, by the way, referring to the hapless workers whose sackings are the background of the film. Anna Kendrick who plays the new girl at the company is ferret faced and unengaging, with a peculiar one dimensional performance. But then one cares not a jot about anyone in this cheerless, dreary, depressing film.
Why it should have been nominated for any award except Turkey of the Year is a great mystery.