wow!!!

Rating: 8/10 (14 December 2009)

George Clooney finally won me over two years ago with Michael Clayton, but Ryan Bingham from Up in the Air may well be his performance of a lifetime (let's hope there's more where this one came from) and certainly represents his best work as an actor yet. BA nomination is secured, and who knows, he may even finally get it this year.
Up in the Air is a fantastic film that serves up all the clichés only to shatter your expectations and turn the aforementioned clichés upside down. In the process the excellent screenplay brings the grim reality of life and how it *really* plays out most of the time to the screen, from where the actors' work projects it back onto the viewer in a wonderfully poignant way. The saddest thing of course is that Up in the Air is not going to win the Best Picture. The reason for that is the Academy will once again as it usually does (note: not always, but in most cases) vote something that is considered an *important* film instead, i.e. something that is not a Sideways_esque portrayal of regular people in their lives, more bombastic, pretentious, and preferably directed by a big-name icon. Inevitably dwarfed in the shadow of that big Oscar juggernaut will end up Up in the Air, a film that can be compared to Sideways and Juno as far as its relatively unpretentious approach to film-making is concerned.
Yet here is a motion picture that is thousands upon thousands times more profound. And as far as being pretentious, the layers of depth are so many, there will be much to ponder as you think back to the misleadingly simple story's intricate texture. Anyone who has ever... stopped and given some thought to the backbone of most of our lives - things like love, and marriage, and kids, and the endless running around until one gets old, is going to have an emotional response to this film, it is rather impossible not to. The amazing thing is that these responses will come in many ways as opposed to just one. The film accomplishes an amazing treat of discussing different philosophies and somehow reconciling them in the end... in the process of doing so, the screenplay uses the recurring (but by no means suffocatingly predominant, The Terminal this is not) airport setting as a means of situating the story, and its characters, against the backdrop of an environment that symbolizes diversity, portraying life as it is... that is, as anything but black and white.
All of the cast must be credited with what simply is a phenomenal job. I had admired Vera Farmiga's work for a while, and Anna Kendrick is a revelation (no, I have not seen the Twilight films and have no intention to, so this is my first acquaintance with her work). You have to look for the cameos. The humor is excellent and the scary parts... well, I will spoil nothing for you, but anyone who has ever been in a very dark place as far as losing faith in humankind is concerned is going to find something here. I can't think of a single dull or throwaway scene, and even the soundtrack is spot on. In the center of it all, however, towers George Clooney's performance. Subtle, to the point where some critics will without a doubt still attempt to confuse it with bleak, Clooney's work here is loaded with wonderful shades of depth. Yes, he plays a stereotype, but in the process of doing so, as all the greats have at one point or another, Clooney enables the viewer to recognize parts of that stereotype, if not the whole of it, in themselves.
So far, my pick for the Best Picture and it's not even close. A marvelous surprise and an absolute must-see. Bring on the nominations!