Airworld

Eight years ago, in the summer of 2001, I read Walter Kirn's just-published novel Up in the Air and enjoyed it, especially due to the synchronistic experience of reading a good part of the book on board a flight from NYC to L.A.  The cover depicted a number of men flying through the air as if they were mini-airplanes, with one crashing and burning.  A month or so later came an event which rendered such a book cover - let alone a story about a guy who practically lives on airplanes and in airports - a bit less than attractive to your average reader.  Maybe only a fellow writer would have such thoughts, but I remember musing, months after 9-11, on Walter Kirn's unfortunate book release date - talk about bad timing!

So it's kind of amazing, actually - and a testament to the power of a good story - to see that eight-plus years later, the big screen version of Up in the Air, on track to win a Best Picture nomination along with a host of other prizes and critical accolades, is arguably the most timely movie of the year.  I can't think of another film I've seen recently that seems to capture so unerringly the peculiar tenor of this moment we're in, and it's a testament to the talents of the team that's brought it to the screen that given such a moment, Up in the Air isn't just a big fat downer.

Instead, this story about a guy who flies around the country firing people for a living is a poignant, bittersweet sad-and-funny experience - a kind of high wire act of sorts, as it balances on the edge of where comedy turns to tragedy and vice versa.  The movie - which does a lot of shrewd, hard work to seem breezy-easy in its delivery - is about going in two directions at once.  You want to love Ryan Bingham because George Clooney's playing him, but he's actually kind of despicable, in a marvelously charismatic way.  And you want everything to turn out okay for the people in the story, even when everything in the movie's telling you that "okay" isn't really an option in the end.

 

Clooney was born for a role like this, and newcomer Anna Kendrick now has a career to reckon with.  Everyone on board - including, somewhat queasily, the non-actors Reitman roped in to play themselves: recently-fired people - lends substance to a world that breathes insubstantiality. 

Here are a few interviews with the director/co-adapter of Up in the Air: this one speak to his overall intentions, this one gives Walter Kirn's POV on the adaptation; the third talks about the director's use of real people in small (wrenching) roles. 

I've been singing Jason Reitman's praises since his first feature, Thank You For Smoking, and he's only getting better (Juno was his second).  The guy's now three-for-three, a damned impressive average for any filmmaker, and the evidence suggests that even when he eventually fails (nobody in Hollywood history has ever pitched a perfect, no-misser game), he's going to be interesting.  

From my point of view, this auteur is carving out an intriguing little niche for himself: Ryan, like Smoking's anti-hero Nick Naylor (and in a sense, Juno) is a slick talker in need of redemption.  All three of Reitman's movies focus in on the dance you do around the lies you tell in order to get along, and the truths that life ultimately forces you to confront.

Speaking of talk, the movie is a must-see for romantic comedy fans - though it's not a romantic comedy.  The banter between Clooney and the lovely Vera Farmiga is as witty as a vintage screwball's.  There's some twenty minutes of pure rom-com bliss scattered throughout Up in the Air: George and Vera's timing is impeccable and their chemistry a delight.  For most of the time they're on screen together, we really are up in the air in the best sense of the phrase, and I can only hope that the movie's success reminds the studios that such sophistication, nuance and panache is still worth pursuing.

Meanwhile, the material in the movie that brings us back to earth has a devastating accuracy and punch.  There's one heartrending shot here of an office, nearly denuded of desks and activity, inhabited only by a few walking wounded, that's the most eloquent portrait of America 2009 I've seen outside of a newspaper's front page. 

Reitman's artful existential tap-dance is no doubt already earning its backlash - there are those who'll find it too glib for anyone's good - but if you'd like to go to the movies and see some resonant sense of the world we're living in (with glimpses of the dreams we keep trying to believe in), Up in the Air has got it down.

Comments

[binnie]

I LOVED THIS MOVIE! I saw it a screening last week, having heard none of the buzz, and haven't stopped raving about it since. SO good.

[E.C. Henry]

Jason Reitman :-)

This post 8-)

This post responder ==|:-)

- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

[Rhonda]

cant wait to see this, nicely writter....

[Maestro]

Counterpoint re: 9/11 and the power of a good story--there was a TV series pilot about a man who was presumed killed in the Twin Towers who turns up in the present with no memory of the intervening years.

I would've liked to have seen that show. But I also get why it didn't get picked up.

[ezwriter]

Just read the script... 45 minutes. A real page turner. Fun. Includes every no-no ever pointed out in UCLA classes. Typos or dumb spelling mistakes, We see, Author intrusion, Songs, Character "feelings" not seen on screen, Italics, Bold, over use of Capitalization,etc. Goes to prove, it's the STORY that counts.

[mernitman]

Binnie: Clearly you have excellent taste.

EC: ;->

Rhonda: You'll enjoy.

Maestro: Now that more time has passed, maybe it'll get picked up...

Ezwriter: Story is king, and awfully-executed scripts get sold all the time. Just goes to show you, yes, but another truism is - Directors who write drafts (and know they can get the movie set up) play by a different rulebook than pre-pro spec writers.

[Annie]

Up In the Air is a proficient script for sure. Question (SPOILER ALERT): What do you think of Alex being married with kids? Why did Reitman choose to negate the relationship and all of its build up this way? Why couldn't Ryan have showed up and her apartment be a mirror image to his? Then you could have a montage of them creating a space together or each grounding each other with new places (and in the end they could have broken up anyway). Why was it so important that he not have found home with her? Is it that she is a "starter" or spark for him, rather than the real thing? And if so, did anyone else feel really let down and mislead by the chemistry build up prior to the reveal (which I never found that surprising, actually). Thanks!

[Diane Drake]

Wow! Thanks for making me conscious about this latest expertise. It is overwhelming.

[mernitman]

Annie: I think of the movie as being about compartmentalization - Alex was a kind of mirror image of Ryan's disconnected way of living. He's up in the air! And precisely because he's not grounded in any tangible, connect-able reality (until he begins to discover those connections, as a consequence of falling in love with her), that's where she can disconnect from her life, and meet him there (she couldn't meet him on the ground).
Etc.

Diane: As I've enjoyed your work, thank you for reading me!