By: El Georgerino
Jason Reitman is the new big success story for directors for the last five years. After spending a few years directing a couple of short independant films, he busts out of the mold with his first full length motion picture, “Thank You for Smoking”. When this movie came out, it knocked me off my feet. He was somehow able to create a satire on the life of a lobbyist for the tobacco industry while somehow making you not want to curb stomp him, but instead feel for his situation and almost understand the arguments he presents in favor of big tobacco. Next, he came out with a little jem known as “Juno”, which didn’t seem like much at first glance — a story of a teenage girl who gets knocked up by her not-really boyfriend in the heat of mutual boredom — which really turned into an hilariously exaggerated look at just how weird and damned insane teenage love can be.
With “Up in the Air”, Reitman takes that same quarky almost caricature-esque nature he has of portraying his characters and delivers another interesting character study into the life of a man who you are both meant to loath and feel sorry for at the same time. There are truly no redeeming qualities to George Clooney’s character, Ryan Bingham except for his fast witted sense of humor and his complete disregard for the basic human connections most of us make on a daily basis. Granted, when you first think about it, something like that wouldn’t necessarily amount to much of an appeal for a character, but if you think about what makes literary figures interesting, it is how much they differ from ourselves.
On the surface, “Up in the Air” is the classic story of an overworked, materialistic man with no concept of the true meaning of love, freindship and human interaction and then meets somebody who changes all of the ideas he used to hold and maintain as comfort. He is comforted by the fact that when he gets to an airport, his entire life can fit into a carry on luggage bag with absolutely no ties to the place he just left, other than the heap of employees he just got finished firing. This movie could have been so easy to have made boring, redundant and uninteresting, but instead we get a film that takes chances and really brings some new life into the romantic comedy genre.
What Reitman manages to get right about a story like this, and what in the hands of a less talented director would have failed to do, was present the complete subtleties of the inevitable transformation George Clooney’s character goes through as the movie progresses. Never does the movie stop and slap the audience in the face with a clear indication that something fundamental was happening with Ryan Bingham other than the soft easing nudge towards a more sympathetic appreciation for what he’s going through.
I found this film to be a complete success in almost every respect. It was genuine, unique and poignant for the current economic situation we’ve managed to find ourselves in. Which reminds me, everybody needs to stay till the ending credits. For one, you’ll be surprised to find out who plays some of the fired employees and there’s a special little musical number which ties the movie up very nicely.
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