A Review of Up in the Air

Up in the Air is one of the best movies I have seen in a long time. George Clooney who seems to get better and better with age, plays Ryan Bingham, a ‘career transition specialist.’ His occupation really is to relieve people of theirs. He spends up to 322 days on the road, flying from one destination to another and firing employees for all those corporate bosses too afraid to do it for themselves.

Even a script with such a grim subtext doesn’t necessarily need to be depressing, which writer/director Jason Reitman has made something of a speciality with his last two features being Thank You for Smoking and Juno. With an exceptionally clever script and great starring turns from leads George Clooney, Vera Farmiga and Twilight’s Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air has you laughing in one moment and then pulls at your heartstrings in another.

Adding vitality to the heartbreaking scenes of Ryan Bingham’s daily work is that real people who had experienced real life retrenchments were used instead of actors. Whether you've ever been a victim of a recession and downsizing or not, you can't help but feel sad, confused and angry right there with them.

While we are never quite sure Bingham loves his work, he certainly loves his solitary, Up in the Air existence. It’s totally devoid of commitment, affection and other messy complexities of life. He even moonlights as a motivational speaker, giving self-help lectures on how to simplify life by avoiding relational interaction and obligation.

Through the course of the movie, two spanners are thrown into Bingham’s machine. First, he meets Alex, (Vera Farmiga), his female shark-like equivalent, who is looking for no-strings-attached sex and companionship on business trips. Yet somehow these trysts gradually leave Bingham suddenly feeling lonely and hoping for more.

The other spanner is young dynamo new employee Natalie, (Anna Kendrick), who proves equally disruptive to Bingham’s detached routines. She introduces the idea to Bingham’s boss (Jason Bateman in a great cameo), of firing people remotely over the Internet, possibly saving their company millions in travel expenses—but simultaneously threatening Bingham’s ‘up in the air’ existence.

Ironically, Bingham argues that people deserve a personal touch when being let go, and demands that the inexperienced Natalie learn the old ways before trying to change the status quo. Their boss agrees, but requires Bingham to do the showing on a cross-country firing expedition. Immediately, these two challenge each other’s core beliefs, and both are left in a dilemma: Natalie struggles to live with herself as she demolishes other peoples’ lives, while Bingham is left wondering if he can finally face having a mature relationship.

Essentially the movie explores the price of relationship – and the cost of a life without them. It is significant that The Velveteen Rabbit is used in one of the scenes, as this story touches upon Bingham’s greatest struggle, his fear of becoming authentic through relationship. After all, there is no doubt that being in relationship with others is difficult. As this children’s story demonstrates, it wears out your joints, exhausts you and damages your fur.

But, it simultaneously makes your life and world wonderfully real. The Biblical message never shies away from the raw cost and difficulties of relationship, but at the same time Scripture urges (even commands) us to take up this cost. We are reminded that we have been created in love, by love and FOR love. God made us for relationships (and the commitment that involves), and ultimately, we find ourselves and our life’s true meaning within that whole process.

Bingham does grow to realise that his sterile reality is not a life at all. I am not going to give anything away, suffice to say that the movie never veers into sentimentality or predictability.

Go see this movie! (Please be warned that it does contain some strong language and sexual content).