day 55 - Up in The Air

OK film fans, I realized today that we are rapidly approaching the Oscars and I am behind in checking out the cream of the crop for this year's nominations. I have one for you tonight, but how I got to it is a little unusual. This morning at work I was putting my lunch in the refrigerator and had a "polite conversation" with a woman from another department, the kind you have in the workplace with someone you see but don't know. As I hunted for a spot to put my lunch she mentioned that another department had 4 refrigerators to our measly 3. Then she wondered out loud if they really had that many more people in their department, especially after the "change" in staffing we had gone through. I made an offhanded remark about it always being an adventure and she replied, as if it was her personal mantra, "At least I still have a job." The way she said it stuck with me all day. The pain in her voice and the sigh afterward, it was like the worst thing she could imagine was not cancer or blindness or whatever, but actually losing her job. To be honest it kind of freaked me out. I could almost understand that kind of consumption if you were a Doctor or a Priest, a career that takes a special calling, but an office worker? I just couldn't make the connection. I understand needing a paycheck and I'm sure she had a mortgage, kids and the rest of The American Dream Luggage Set to contend with. Ultimately it speaks of a growing desperation in America, the kind you sense when The Dream is in danger of spinning out of control.

Up in the Air is the story of a man, Ryan Bingham (The Man, George Clooney) and his job. Because this is a comedy/drama for grownups, he is not a spy or a cop, a singer or an athlete, a CEO or a mogul. He is also not a mercenary, at least not the kind that kills people with a gun. He is a Termination Facilitator. When your company is "right-sizing" but doesn't have the balls to tell you face to face, they hire his employer, he flies in, he calmly tells you your presence is no longer needed, he handles your tantrum with grace and then flies off to the next city where he washes, rinses and repeats. With the economy in the shape it is now his business is booming. (And given the time it takes to green light, shoot and edit a film, this is an extraordinarily prescient film.) With his precious spare time Ryan speaks at self-help seminars about how and why to unpack the excess baggage of your life. He is not a swan, as he likes to state in his seminars, he is a shark. If he has a motto, and he seems to have a few, the best is this: the slower we move, the faster we die. Ryan Bingham moves so fast that nothing, not family, friends or lovers, can weigh him down.

George Clooney plays Ryan as a person who, like a spy, exists directly in front of you without you ever really knowing him. He's polite and friendly, he values his job and the service it provides (which is brutal but in his hands performed with dignity) but you would never know who he is. And this is exactly as Ryan has planned it; he has organized and compartmentalized his life down to a single suitcase and an empty apartment that he dreads spending 30 odd days a year in. This carefully crafted lifestyle comes into jeopardy in the form of two women.

The first is a fellow road warrior, Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga, an actress we need to see more of in big films), who shares not only his lifestyle but his attitude as well. They crisscross America, connecting whenever their flights land them in the same vicinity. Despite their casual relationship something about her starts to give Ryan thoughts he's not accustomed too. He even asks her to accompany him to his sister's wedding, visiting a family he's barely a part of. The second, Natalie Keener, is a recent Ivy League grad who has plans to bring the company into our high-tech modern era, firing people via video conferencing, thus ending Ryan's life in the clouds. The fact that Ryan might be grounded is a thought he cannot bear and he convinces his boss (Jason Bateman, continuing his career resurgence playing complete assholes) that she doesn't know the business. Unfortunately for Ryan his solution is for him to show her the ropes.

One of my favorite themes in the film is in how wunderkind Director Jason Reitman (son of the Legendary comedy Producer Ivan Reitman), in the words of my film shaman, "starts with the way corporations justify immoral behavior and then applies their rationalizations with perfect logic." In his last three films Reitman has successfully made intelligent satires about cigarettes companies, teenage pregnancy and now corporate layoffs. In each film these McGuffins are but pretext to the actual story of human convictions.

Up in the Air is about a common version of the modern man, a Peter Pan who has replaced human connection with a career. Ryan's life is spent in the clouds so he can soar over the entanglements that come with human connection. He has built his armor thick and created superb defense mechanisms. But life has a way of finding your weak spots, testing your limits and breaking you down to make you stronger. What Ryan isn't prepared for in life is exactly what life gives him. As Ryan repeatedly tells the inconsolable "right-sized" people sitting across from him, "Anybody who ever built an empire, or changed the world, sat where you are now. And it's because they sat there they were able to do it."