Up in the Air

I once temped for an outplacement firm. Their fortune rose when those of other companies fell, as they provided services for newly terminated employees. While I worked there, though, I never heard of a "termination specialist," which is the occupation of Ryan Bingham, played by George Clooney, in the film Up the Air. He jets around the country, doing the dirty work of firing employees, giving them empty words of comfort and a packet outlining their severance packages.

I'm not sure this job really exists, or whether companies that are in the shitter would hire a firm to send someone on a plane to come and fire people. But in the long run that doesn't matter--there is no moon (that we know of) that has nine-foot-tall blue people who live in trees, but Avatar seems to be doing okay. If you can get past the notion that it's a fantasy, Up in the Air is a brilliant film.

It was directed by Jason Reitman, who has now made three pictures that I have enjoyed tremendously--Thank You for Smoking and Juno came previously. He has developed a style that incorporates a certain winking at the audience--showing what a character is describing, such as when Clooney explains what fired employees might do and Reitman gives us quick cuts with Zack Galifiniakis pouring bleach into the communal coffee pot or taking a sniper's position with a rifle on a nearby rooftop. In Juno we got tastes of this when the title character describes her favorite bands, or when Aaron Eckhart in Thank You for Smoking tells us what he's all about. This style is manna for smart viewers and those who have ever attempted to write a screenplay, I can only hope that it also appeals to others, because his films crackle with life and immediately draw me into the story.

Clooney's character, in addition to firing people for a living, gives seminars on how to discard unwanted things and people from one's life. He travels almost all the time--his Omaha refrigerator has nothing in it but some A-1 steak sauce and miniature bottles of booze from the airlines. He lives to travel, luxuriating in the rhythms of airport life--the people movers, the over-priced restaurants, the rituals of homeland security. He has it down to a science, with Reitman and his editor providing some zippy scenes of Clooney packing. All of this travel has Clooney close to a goal he has long harbored--10 million frequent-flyer miles.

Of course, a character this smug is due for a fall. His firm listens to an idea by a hot-shot newcomer, Anna Kendrick, to do the firings by video conference. Again, one must shoulder suspension of disbelief. It's hard to contemplate that a firm such as this wouldn't have thought of that long ago, and then it's harder to believe that Kendrick would be sent out on the road to shadow Clooney to learn about the business that she presumably has been doing for some time. But the situation is a goldmine, as Clooney's cynicism is matched with Kendrick's chirpy efficiency. Only they don't fall in love.

Instead, Clooney, who believes in forming no romantic attachments, has fallen for Vera Farmiga, who follows the same philosophy (she tells him to think of her as himself with a vagina). They meet in a hotel bar and compare loyalty cards from hotels, airlines and rental cars in a scene that is blissfully written. But when Clooney starts to think of her as more than a casual fuck-buddy, he faces a crisis.

This film works on several different levels. At the surface it is a breezy romantic comedy, but beneath the lovely patina of Hollywood (this film looks great) there is a more sinister core--unemployment. It's based on a novel by Walter Kirn that was written before the current economic crisis, but the film hits on a sensitive time in American history, as there will surely be some squirming at the many scenes of employees being let go. But the film is never glib about it, and in many of these scenes Reitman uses actual unemployed people to play the roles. Whether by accident or design, Up in the Air has becomes something of a Grapes of Wrath for our time (well, maybe the Sullivan's Travels), a film that will be shown in college history courses when discussing the early part of the twenty-first century.

I haven't read the book, so I don't know how much is Kirn and how much is Reitman and co-writer Sheldon Turner, but it's all lovely. The screenplay is full of quotable lines, and in addition to the Clooney-Farmiga meeting, there is a knockout scene in which Kendrick, dumped by her boyfriend by text message, seeks advice from Clooney and Farmiga, who seem to her to be both sages and fools. There is also a wonderful moment when Clooney, who has already spoken against marriage, is shamed into trying to talk his future brother-in-law out of a fit of cold feet. The irony is just too delicious.

Up in the Air is also exquisitely acted. Kendrick, like an eager chipmunk, is terrific, while Farmiga is smooth as silk. I had some trouble with her character at first, as she is initially presented as an idealization of a Playboy reader's fantasy--she wants sex, puts up with almost everything, even to the point of attending Clooney's sister's wedding and tagging along when he visits his old school. I knew she was to good to be true, but when the other shoe drops it both surprised me and made perfect sense, which is essential to good storytelling.

But Clooney is the story here. He is the pre-eminent film star working today. He makes mistakes (Leatherheads) but on the whole is taste in script-picking is divine. He is adorable to women and likable to men, and when his character faces his crossroads it is written on his face. I particularly liked a scene in which he is on the phone with Farmiga (probably for the last time) and his face becomes awash with disappointment when she describes him as a parenthesis. If we think of ourselves as punctuation marks, parentheses would probably come pretty low on the totem pole. Coupled with his voice work in Fantastic Mr. Fox, Clooney has had a bang-up year (I haven't seen The Men Who Stare at Goats yet).

This is the kind of film I could watch again and again. For those who buy me Christmas or birthday presents, remember this when it becomes available on DVD.