Clooney Deserved An Oscar

Rating: 8/10 (29 May 2010)

Y'know how movies are often criticized for somehow being less than the novels from which they are adapted? That the characters so three dimensional on paper become two dimension on celluloid? That the plots are untwisted and sanitized? Not so for "Up In The Air".
I read the novel first, as it happened whilst I was on the road for a couple of weeks. It captured the tarnished charisma of modern air travel beautifully, the banality of it all. The once glamorous pilots have become bus drivers, the once elegant stewardesses have become waitresses. Greyhound with wings.
That being said the book also paints a picture in two dimensions... of a guy who goes around the country firing people for a living. He's a professional asshole basically. The very thing that irks most of us about modern day travelthe utter staleness of it all is this guy's wellspring of comfort. His goal in life, it seems, is to amass frequent flyer miles for the sole purpose of amassing miles. He is colorless; he is two-dimensional because he chooses to be. Or maybejust maybehe can't help it.
The movie takes this premise and expands on it. That's the gift herea rather (purposefully) banal book is brought to life. mostly thanks to Clooney's interpretation of a very well written script the two dimensional characters grow a third dimension. Mostly but not exclusively. The film is nicely shot, thoughtfully decorated and extremely well cast in the persons of Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick. What ends up happening is one of these women warms his heart and the other breaks it. Clooney takes this character from being a superficial cliché'-spouting asswipe to becoming a vulnerable somewhat adrift middle aged man. It's a tour de force, ranking up there with his portrayal of Ulysses Everett McGill. In this case however he didn't have the Coen Brothers gifted bizarre adaptation of Homer to lift him.
This performance deserved the Oscar for Clooney.