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Up in the Air is a very good, almost great, film. With George Clooney playing a variation of the public persona he has built up, not to be confused with the real person, it offers him a chance to act as charming and roguish as one could possibly wish. He never fails to deliver, even if his performance requires no real “heavy lifting” scenes, he manages to find the layers in this man. And he keeps those complicated and messy emotions always swimming underneath the surface, never wanting to crack the surface with a hint of tension or deep thought. Here is the story of a man who has isolated himself from real relationships being forced to look at his life, for once. He is a man who is married to his job, and not much else occurs in his life.
This is where Anna Kendrick and Vera Farmiga, so perfect in their totally opposite roles but never ringing a false note. Kendrick plays a young upstart at the company Clooney works for who comes along and decides to update and shake up the system. No longer will Clooney be the road warrior, he will become the man who fires you over Skype. Upgrade? Downgrade? I’m not quite sure. But she’s perky, smart and slightly adrift in her life. (I related to her the most.) Meanwhile, Vera Farmiga is Clooney’s fellow frequent flyer, with whom he has a casual sexual relationship. She is warm, intelligent and utterly deceptive. That she plays her blossoming romance scenes with such conviction only makes the big reveal that much more heartbreaking.
Jason Reitman has yet to make a film that I haven’t liked, but this, to me, might just be his film that entertained me the least. The fierce intelligence of Juno and the blackest of black humor of Thank You for Smoking were more enthralling. I felt my attention waning at times during Up in the Air. One more trip through the editing room could have made that easy to fix. But it’s slightly complicated. Unlike with Dr. Parnassus, I cannot pinpoint exact spots where the movie felt long and like it needed to be tightened up. I just know that when I walked out that was my one grievance.
And for the record, I liked the ending.
