Life is better with Company

Rating: 8/10 (30 June 2010)

Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) works for a company based in Omaha in downsizing business and gives motivational lectures. He travels to other companies to fire people and to give advice to the employee in their next step in their careers. The pragmatic and independent Ryan is completely detached and cool and he does not have any steady relationship and does not believe in marriage. He only dreams on reaching ten million miles in his favorite air company. During a trip, he meets the cynical executive Alex (Vera Farmiga) and they have one night stand; further they schedule a next encounter in Miami a couple of weeks later. When he returns to his head office, his boss has just hired the rookie and arrogant Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick) that suggests the use of video-conference to fire people from their jobs and reduce the costs of flights, hotels and meals. Ryan exposes the failures in the proposed system and his boss assigns him to travel with Natalie to learn the procedure. Along their journey crossing America, Ryan has a closer contact with Alex and his family and feels uncertainty in his credo. In the end, he realizes that he is only a parenthesis in the life of Alex.
"Up in the Air" is one of the most intelligent romantic comedy I have ever seen. The delightful story is engaging, with witty dialogs, dramatic situations and a charming couple – I am a big fan of the lovely Vera Farmiga, and George Clooney has his best performance in years, showing a wonderful chemistry with Ms. Farmiga. Anna Kendrick is hilarious in the role of Natalie and her attitudes reflect the behavior part of the younger generation. The double meaning of the original title is not possible to translate to Portuguese. My vote is eight.
Title (Brazil): "Amor Sem Escalas" ("Love without Stop Over")