Whatever Else It Is, It's Relevant

Rating: 7/10 (26 January 2010)

"Up in the Air," director Jason Reitman's follow up to his break-out hit "Juno," is easily the most topical film I've seen this year. No other movie has been so in tune with current events and the cultural anxiety brought about by the recent economic crisis.
George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, whose job it is to do companies' dirty work for them and fire employees. He's a transient being, living out of suitcases and hotel rooms, and that's just the way he likes it. But then he meets Alex, a fellow transient being (Vera Farmiga) for whom he develops real feelings, and Natalie (Anna Kendrick), a spunky go-getter who's assigned to trail him and learn from him but who instead wakes him up a bit to the emptiness of a life devoid of meaningful emotional connections.
"Up in the Air" is a very solid bit of movie-making, never less than entertaining and extremely well acted. But it's a movie that doesn't hold together very well when you step back and start thinking about it. Vera Farmiga gives a lovely performance as Alex, but her character is the weakest written and doesn't make a lot of sense. She prides herself on being as detached from emotional baggage as Ryan is, and something we learn about her late in the movie proves that she means what she says, but would someone who really wants to keep emotional attachments to a minimum decide to be a man's weekend date for his sister's wedding? And after he crossed the boundaries she explicitly erected, wouldn't she call things off rather than leave open the opportunity to continue on with their relationship? Would there really be an audience for the kind of "motivational" speaking engagements Bingham delivers? Would anyone in his right mind even think of building a presentation from the concept of getting rid of everything in your life that has meaning? Too much of this felt like it serviced the plot without ringing true on its own terms.
You can call these things quibbles, and maybe they are. Like I said, much of "Up in the Air" works very well. But the script calls too many things about itself into question for the movie to be completely satisfying.
Grade: B+