Let me get right to it. If you’re a George Clooney fan, you must see the excellent performance he brings to Up In The Air. Do not be surprised if you hear George Clooney’s name as a Best Actor Academy Award nominee for this mature, relevant comedy. He knocked me out with this role. He not only broke me up laughing but he also brought tears to my eyes with the depth, texture and heart he gives to a character that you’re prepared to hate when the film opens.
The movie is about making connections and about the baggage we carry in our lives. Is it really heavy baggage or not? Are we really getting anyplace better and faster when he travel without any of it? Especially when we’re middle-aged? It’s also a modern-day look at loyalty and loneliness. Don’t worry. There’s also a woman and a little sex to give the story that Preston Sturges or Billy Wilder lemon zest. Clooney’s wise-cracking character, Ryan Bingham, is a sexy corporate Terminator. He frequently flies to companies that are downsizing and he fires people. He talks each person through the severance package. He’s also a motivational speaker. The thing is, you feel that he doesn’t fully believe that whole line of jive he’s slickly giving out at the podium. As for the moments when he tells people they’ve been laid off, you sense that he hates delivering that news and works hard to give each meeting some silver bit of uncorporate humanity.
Did you ever see Cary Grant in Hitchcock’s North by Northwest? Remember when his smooth-talking ad man character, Roger O. Thornhill, pulls out his initialed matchbook on the train and Eve, the cool blonde, asks “What does the ‘O’ stand for?” He saucily answers, “Nothing.” Clooney’s Ryan Bingham is that “Nothing.” If Up In The Air had been a wry comedy made during the economic recession of the early 1950s, it would’ve starred Cary Grant. As the film begins with individual workers expressing disbelief and anger at being let go after years of job loyalty, you are grabbed. This movie’s release is as perfectly timed today as The China Syndrome was in 1979. It’s an odd thing to write, but if you’ve been on unemployment this year, this is the comedy for you.
Be cautious of listening to movie critics review it or National Public Radio show hosts interview actors or writer/director Jason Reitman. He also directed Juno. Be cautious because they reveal way too much nowadays about the films. Especially on NPR. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a host on NPR begin a new film interview question with “At the end of the movie when…” Drives me crazy. Just go and enjoy George Clooney’s new movie. I attended a preview screening. I saw it for free and I’ll be paying to see it again. This won’t ruin anything: There’s a section in Wisconsin. The night time scene in front of the chalet restaurant to the end of the Wisconsin sequence presents some of the richest, funniest and most touching acting of Clooney’s film career. He’s terrific. Well-acted by everyone, smartly and compassionately written and directed by Jason Reitman, Up In The Air is one of the best American films I’ve seen this year.
Tags: "Up In The Air", George Clooney
I think “Up In the Air” was INCREDIBLE. I really believe that he SHOULD get an Oscar for that role. I could feel him, as a character, come out of that shell, and long for more……
Sigh..