Review: Up in the Air

Phew!  

I'm back from a whirl wind holiday season that involved A LOT of socializing in various Ontario cities from Niagara to Ottawa.  Somehow, I even managed to squeeze a bit of work in.  As you might expect, I have quite a bit to write about, and seeing as I don't have a whole lot to do today, I plan on keeping myself occupied by posting about a few of the blog-worthy experiences I had over the past week or so.  First of all, I'd like to talk about one of the movies I saw during the holidays, Up in the Air.

The movie centres around Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) - one of those unpleasant types who fire people for a living so their cowardly bosses don't have to.  As part of the job, he is required to do quite a bit of traveling, and is therefore on the road for the vast majority of the year.  Ryan relishes this lifestyle, and makes a game out of seeing how many airline/hotel/rental car points he can collect, and how successful he can be at avoiding any sort of "meaningful" human relationship.  When his treasured lifestyle is compromised by the 21st century online ideology of a hot young co-worker, Natalie (Anna Kendrick), he decides to take her with him on his journeys, and enlighten her on what his job is really like.  In the mean time, he begins to discover the benefits of real relationships, and falls in love with an on-the-road booty call, Alex Groan (Vera Farmiga).

A lot of people I've talked to did not like this movie because they found it slow.  Personally, I'd call it more subtle than slow, and I quite enjoy subtle.  The well developed characters and the situations they get themselves into make the plot no less than fascinating for someone like me.  Up in the Air is also very well acted, which plays a huge role in the effect of the film.  The part of Ryan seems like it made for George to play, and he really is at his very best here.

There's also a whole "living the fantasy" layer of the movie, which I don't want to get into too much for fear of giving away elements of the plot....

Anyway, if you're like me and enjoy semi-pretentious character based movies, you'll probably love Up in the Air.