Up in the Air

Rating: 8/10 (17 September 2010)

I saw the review by Jonathan Ross which was quite positive, and it had been getting hyped because of the up coming awards ceremonies, so I had to see why, from Oscar and Golden Globe nominated director Jason Reitman (Thank You For Smoking, Juno), son of director Ivan. Basically Ryan Bingham (Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominated George Clooney) makes a living and career from flying place to place to fire employees from companies where the boss can't do it themselves. He works for an Ohama based Career Transition Counseling that deals in corporate downsizing, and his boss Craig Gregory (Jason Bateman) has hired arrogant young Natalie Keener (Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominated Anna Kendrick) who has developed a computer video conferencing method of doing Ryan's job. Determined to show how much of an error this idea by the naive strategist is to (his and) the company's future, Ryan is taking Natalie to all the places he is assigned to in order to see why the way he does the job is much more professional than what she proposes. While journeying Ryan is asked by sister Kara (Amy Morton) to take a cardboard cut-out of his sister Julie (Melanie Lynskey) and her fiancée Jim Miller (Danny McBride) with him and take photos of them in many of the places he travels. Along the way Ryan also has a great sexual relationship with attractive businesswoman Alex Goran (Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominated Vera Farmiga) whenever their flight plans at the airports come together. Ryan has realisations about his lifestyle choice, he changes his opinion on marriage relationships being meaningless after helping Jim and Jim patch the wedding up, and he finds out that Alex is married. In the end, Natalie leaves the company after discovering that a particularly memorable woman committed suicide after losing her job, Ryan hits his dream goal of taking 10,000 miles worth of flying and meets plane pilot Maynard Finch (Tombstone's Sam Elliott), but he can't celebrate it as much as he would have wanted, and he enters an airport with no idea where to go. Also starring Spider-Man's J.K. Simmons as Bob and The Hangover's Zach Galifianakis as Steve. Clooney does really well as the charming, smooth talking and sophisticated hired gun, the two supporting female characters also do very well in the scenes they feature, it is a really good adult romantic comedy drama that steers clear from too many clichés and makes the business world look a bit more cool. It was nominated the Oscars for Best Motion Picture of the Year and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published, it won the BAFTA for Best Adapted Screenplay, and it was nominated for Best Film and Best Editing, and it won the Golden Globe for Best Screenplay, and it was nominated for Best Motion Picture - Drama. George Clooney was number 72 on The 100 Greatest Movie Stars, and he was number 7 on The 100 Greatest Sex Symbols. Very good!