About as filling as airline food...

Rating: 5/10 (31 January 2010)

I found this latest offering from writer-director Jason Reitman to be a bland, meandering film consisting of vaguely defined, mostly unengaging characters going through the motions in a threadbare, paint-by-numbers script. One couldn't help but notice the sheer effort in rendering the limp material meaningful and on message enough to give it that cherished Oscar cred. Thus, we have: George Clooney's earnest, resonant intonations about the vicissitudes of life - often provided in handy V.O. just in case we get lost, the use of "real" non-professional actor people to portray the characters receiving the corporate axe wielded by Clooney's mercenary outplacement agent, the jangley, twee acoustic ballads that accompany the various "theme montages" sprinkled throughout the narrative, and always, always, Clooney's ever-present warm, tender gaze impregnating his barren surroundings with richly detailed meaning.
Now, granted, there are some genuinely funny moments that crop up--seemingly by accident, like they were the itinerant left overs from an earlier "funny" draft of the script, presumably written before the Great Recession rendered any comedic treatment of the subject matter unpalatable for Hollywood's delicate sensibilities. These include a delightful Q & A session between Clooney's road mistress (Verna Farmiga) and his young up and coming protégé (Anna Kendrick in an erratic, occasionally annoying performance) regarding relationships and marriage. Another charming moment occurs between Clooney and his very distant potential brother in law who is getting cold feet before his imminent wedding.
It's clear in such scenes that Jason Reitman has a gift for comedy and creating clever, and sometimes touching laughs. But his attempts at serious and topical drama come across as pandering and are too on the nose. All in all, there just weren't enough genuine or engaging moments to dispel the feeling that this whole exercise was an attempt by the director and his creative team to amass the necessary number of theme and message points needed to collect the golden Oscar hardware.