Another Great Film About Men

Rating: 10/10 (27 December 2009)

There are are a lot of movies out there about machismo. About a million of them. But there are very few about masculinity, and only a few of them are really good. The thing is, these films are difficult to review because people tend to get emotional about them. They hit us where we live. Men (and women) just get all worked up about them. They cause normally reasonable people to go all weird.
The most recent examples of the genre are "There Will Be Blood," "The Hurt Locker" and "Up in the Air." These are movies that explore the dark side of masculinity with flinching. They illustrate aspects of being male that have been, almost always, glossed over with macho nonsense. They explore what it means to be masculine.
What makes "Up in the Air" different from most other films of this type is that it is very, very NOW and features a lot of cool technology. But the story is the same in that it is about what is going on inside the mind of a man--in this case a man who has found a new way to to be an isolated, alienated man. He's found a home en route to somewhere else. He is perpetually going somewhere. So much so that his home is in the air.
This is not so different from other men who choose to live as "lone wolves" but in his case he's managed to integrate it into a high-paying career. What a country! But the film is not about how a guy can just travel all the time on the company dime, it's about being a predator and living, literally, like a wolf and loving every minute of it. As my wife said, it's the "hunter thing" again. Guys like to hunt alone and kill stuff. Is it really so surprising that the guy in this movie likes to travel alone and "terminate" people? The fundamental question-- "what is home?" is asked again and again. As the film develops, it becomes clear that a man is only as stable as his home--whatever that may be--and if you throw a man out of his home--even if it is in the air--even the "coolest customer" may panic and behave irrationally until the "stable home (in the air)" is restored.
A masterwork, highly recommended. But not for kids. In fact, I wonder if you really need some gray hair and to be a little condescending to younger people to really "get" this movie.
Sorry if that sounds condescending...