Film File - Up in the Air

Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) has a job perfectly in tune with these recessionary times we live in. He's a corporate downsizer, the guy who brings the bad news of unemployment and imminent P45 status with a disarming smile. Spending much of his life on planes - after all, redundancies are a thriving sector - Ryan is the consummate modern business traveller who, after years of staying happily airborne, has long been contented with his unencumbered lifestyle lived in airports, hotels and rental cars. He can carry all he needs in one carry-on case; he's a pampered, elite member of every travel loyalty programme in existence, and he's close to attaining his lifetime goal of 10 million frequent flier miles. In spite of all this seeming perfection, however, he yearns for something more, something extra in his life. When he falls for a fellow traveller (Vera Farmiga), a woman perfectly in tune with this airborne lifestyle, it looks like the perfect match for the lovelorn man in the skies. Life is rarely perfect, however, and trouble looms from another quarter when Ryan's boss, Craig (Jason Bateman), inspired by the company's young efficiency expert, Natalie (Anna Kendrick), threatens to bring his high-flying career to an end. Faced with the prospect of being permanently grounded, Ryan is forced to contemplate what it might actually mean to have a normal life of commuter traffic and home repayments. Directed by Jason Reitmen, whose previous films introduced two winning anti-heroes - a tobacco lobbyist in 'Thank You For Smoking' and a gutsy, pregnant teenager in 'Juno' - he continues with this well-timed tale of a man whose job equates with the rent collector - he fires people when corporations downsize. But Ryan Bingham is a product of our high-speed, materialistic modern world: a charming man who has embraced ambition and perks to be the best P45 server he can be. Reitman, who also wrote the screenplay, took his inspiration from a novel by Walter Kirn, in a story that attempts to reflect how we live today at an intersecting moment of technological advances and communication breakdowns. Despite a world jam-packed with mobile phones, twittering and texting that gives the illusion of communication, Bingham has managed to reach his mid-40s without forming any true personal attachments other than to his elite travel programmes, and who spends his days quite literally "letting people go". In spite of what could be termed 'heavy message' credentials, 'Up In The Air' is a charming (well, it does have gorgeous George in it) piece of entertainment that carries appeal on many levels. While much of the action in set in glitzy airport lounges and executive seating, there are multiple sections where ordinary folks just made redundant give forth on how the condition will destroy them. Unlike his other films where suave smiles and headlight charm attacks carried him home to audience applause, Clooney has to actually act in this one as he delves beneath the glossy exterior of a perfect life to reveal its emptiness. When he meets the like-minded Alex, another traveller married to her air miles, it seems an executive match made in Heaven. "Think of me as yourself, only with a vagina," she says in surely one of the early contenders for best movie line of 2010. Like the Oscar-winning 'Juno', this is an endearing film that should do very well both in cinemas and the rental DVD market. Yet again, it shows Clooney at his effortless best in a tale full of sharp scripting you'll likely adapt into your own conversations after having seen it.