Up in the Air (2009)

Director: Jason Reitman
Writers: Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner; based on Water Kirn's book

Cast:
Ryan Bingham- George Clooney
Natalie Keener- Anna Kendrick
Alex Goran- Vera Farmiga
Craig Gregory (oh yeah, never trust a dude with two first names)- Jason Bateman
Ryan's sister, Kara- Amy Morton
Ryan's sister, Julie- Melanie Lynskey
Jim, Julie's fiancé- Danny McBride

Awards and Nominations:
nomination-OSCAR- Best Picture (lost to The Hurt Locker)
nomination-OSCAR- Best Supporting Actress- Anna Kendrick
nomination-OSCAR- Best Supporting Actress- Vera Farmiga (lost to Mo'Nique- Precious)
nomination-OSCAR- Best Actor- George Clooney (lost to Jeff Bridges- Crazy Heart)
nomination-OSCAR- Best Director- Jason Reitman (lost to Kathryn Bigelow- Hurt Locker)
nomination-OSCAR- Best Adapted Screenplay (lost to Precious)
Golden Globe- Best Screenplay
nomination- Golden Globe-Best Supporting Actress- Anna Kendrick
nomination- Golden Globe- Best Supporting Actress- Vera Farmiga (see above)
nomination- Golden Globe- Best Actor- George Clooney (see above)
nomination- Golden Globe- Best Picture- drama (Avatar took them to the cleaners! ...oh yeah, that was the year RDJ won for Sherlock Holmes)
nomination- Golden Globe- Best Director- Jason Reitman (lost to James Cameron)

...
some mild spoilers ahead...
...

First off, I’d been meaning to do this post for a while. The motivation has always been the same and I’ve meant to do it around this time but I’d always run out of time or another project caught my attention. But currently going through traffic coming home from the shore house (riding shotgun so you don’t get the idea I’m typing and driving) I’m making time to do it finally.

Have you ever had a movie where you completely see yourself in it, saying “this character is living my life”? While it isn’t a perfect 100% DNA match, my dad loves this movie because George Clooney spends as much of his life on the road as he does. And he can relate to the business of flying so many days out of the year, being efficient about packing luggage, getting through security in a timely manner and, of course, racking up as many frequent flyer miles as possible. It’s all about the miles. While my dad goes internationally (mainly Asia with the occasional sidebar to Europe- not on the same trip, of course) to sell product as part of the metalworking industry, Clooney racks up his miles domestically in a completely different business- firing people.

Watching the movie this latest time, I didn’t even realize that it was inspired by the unemployment crisis that kicked off in 2008 when the housing market collapsed... it's been 10 years now and now that I’ve been working consistently for a couple years now that it’s easy to forget the past. But now recognizing that Clooney’s line of work in this movie is connected to that and I think some of the people in it that were fired weren’t actors but people who’d gone through this rough transition period, it gives me a little more appreciation for it. (According to IMDb, the real people were people that didn't have dialogue with the main actors in the movie).

So this business flies people around the country to various corporations where they fire employees for said corporations (to paraphrase what Clooney says in the narrative) because they are too cowardly to do the firing themselves and leaves them with a packet and words of wisdom like “anybody who ever built an empire or changed the world sat where you are now and it's because they sat there that they were able to do it” (I had to double check I had this quote exactly right because it's important).

The movie starts to kick into its plot because of Anna Kendrick. She plays a college graduate who has the idea to revolutionize this business- using video conferencing to fire people rather than flying people around the country. Of course Clooney hates this idea because it threatens his way of life. He has family that he isn’t particularly close with and is a confirmed bachelor and he travels to avoid having any serious human connection. He also does motivational speeches about avoiding commitment where you stuff all of the things in your life into a backpack, feel how heavy it is and that alone is reason enough not to have any attachment to anything. Moving is living. One speech involves things/objects and the other involves people in your life starting with casual acquaintances and working up to spouses and children. And one involves you setting the backpack on fire and realizing how invigorating that is- don’t worry, he does clarify this.
So he has Anna Kendrick along for the ride and shows her what they do. While she’s working on an algorithm to simplify the process, as brilliant as it sounds in theory, dealing with people in person isn’t as easy as one would think. Along the way, Clooney also meets Alex (played by Vera Farmiga in the first role we all saw her in) who seems to lead the same life he is.

The core trio of cast members are all brilliant at their roles and earned Oscar nomination. While Clooney is cynical, the idealism of Anna Kendrick does get through to him later in the movie- for better and for worse. It does kinda help him develop and change as a character but for me, one aspect of the movie gets ruined in the final few minutes.
The spoiler is about Alex and the truth about her life that comes out when Clooney makes this grand gesture to see her at home to say how he feels. (Why does it always seem like these grand gestures always derail these movies?) To this day I still don’t understand it...
He goes to see her and find out that she’s married and has a family. She calls him up from a parking garage days later and has the nerve to tell him off, saying he could have screwed things up for her. Not once does she even mention this to him...seriously, why? And why doesn’t he say that he has nobody back home that he’s cheating on with her? It’s no wonder she got cast as Norma Bates because that’s totally something she would do.
With all that going on, he finally achieves a goal he’s been working towards, the business needs to reconsider Anna Kendrick’s idea when something tragic befalls one of the hundreds of people they fired, he’s at a bit of a crossroads at the end of the movie...but it offers a lot of interesting possibilities where you can fill in your own blanks- much like the people at the end that are collectively interviewed about their transitioning period.