Thursday, January 14, 2010
Coming from acclaimed director of "Juno" and "Thank You For Smoking," Jason Reitman brings us another unique tale and delves into the soul of quirky man in the 2009 Golden Globe-nominated "Up in the Air."
Meet Ryan Bingham (George Clooney), a man whose sole purpose is to fire people for a living. He is alone and quite proud of that fact. Firing people allows him to travel along the Midwest and rake up flyer miles. His goal? An undisclosed mileage.
In conjunction with Bingham’s lonely island style, in comes the stunning Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga) who, like Bingham, racks up miles through her own corporate ventures. Bonding in a dimly lit hotel bar, they play a charismatic game of “who has more miles” and discuss what airline clubs they hold cards to. It’s sexy— in an airline kind of way. But don’t get too excited about hot love affairs in this smart comedy, for Reitman is known for subtlety with onscreen romances.
What’s different about this film is that it reflects modern America down to its core. We see the immediate effects Bingham’s job has on its victims. Both J.K. Simmons and Zach Gilafianakis (The Hangover) give powerfully humorous and emotional reactions to the sudden loss of their jobs, which truly reflects the current American rate of job loss.
But Anna Kendrick, who plays the tightly-wound new college grad Natalie Keener, truly steals the show. Attempting to completely restructure the company Bingham works for, she illustrates our generation’s shift toward the sometimes-impersonal relationships we have with technology. Furthermore, Kendrick proves her worthiness for Golden Globe buzz unlike her previous performance of ditzy Jessica in "Twilight" and "New Moon."
Through an intricate story of the relationships we have with one another, Bingham, Goran and Keener go on a journey both internally and externally and find something about themselves that they never would have expected. Plus, a few side plots are laugh-out-loud kind of funny.
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