Clooney in a serious role, a study on the meaning of life.

Rating: Null/10 (15 March 2010)

George Clooney is Ryan Bingham, the number one road man for a company that specializes in firing people. The people don't work for his company, but his company is hired to fire them and then spend 6 to 12 months to help them re-direct their careers. (Some of the characters seen being fired are not actors, instead they are people who really had been fired recently.)
Ryan is happy with his life. His 'home' is the airplane, the hotel, the constant traveling. When he shows up, yet again, the staff knows him by name. He has a goal, he hesitates to tell about it, to reach 10 Million traveler miles. Not that he wants to go anywhere else, he just wants the satisfaction of achieving that milestone. He would become only the 7th person to do so, and his name would be added to the side of a plane.
He was happy, but his life had no substance. It was all fluff, even though he was very good at his job, actually being able to make fired employees feel good about the situation. He gave seminars on "how full is your backpack", urging attendants to get rid of unnecessary things and relationships to walk easier through life.
But he does have one vice, a girlfriend road warrior whom he meets periodically. Vera Farmiga is that girlfriend, Alex Goran.
All that sets up the main of the movie, where a young new MBA, Anna Kendrick as Natalie Keener, joins the company and convinces the boss that they can save lots of time and travel expense by using video conferencing to fire people, no need to do it face-to-face.
Jason Bateman is the boss, Craig Gregory.
There are a few other side stories involving Ryan's sisters and one of their weddings, but the meat of the story is Ryan, how he eventually realizes that his life is very empty, and even if he can convince his boss that they need to travel, his life will still be empty.
Good movie.
SPOILERS: At some point, while dealing with the new girl and some fired employee issues, he starts to realize the emptiness of his life. He starts to mend that by inviting Alex to be his date at his sister's wedding in Wisconsin. Then, in a spontaneous moment he travels to Chicago, and rings the doorbell at Alex's home, only to find she is married and has children, something they never discussed. So he has to re-direct his energies, but he has turned the corner.