Reviews (June 2010)

by Luke O sbaldeston

Up In The Air (2010)
Certificate: 15
Original DVD Rental Release UK: 7th of May 2010
Original Cinema Release UK: 15th of January 2010
Length: 108 minutes

Director: Jason Reitman
Stars: George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna
Kendrick, Jason Bateman.

Up In The Air will likely end up Down in the Bargain Bin – this statement being as entertaining and enlightening as anything you will find in this film. It seems another month, another George Clooney romcon/romdrama/romboredom. I found this whole film rather witless and soulless. It says “A Classic Comedy” on the front cover – it must be that other kind of classic comedy, where it is forgotten very quickly and was not laughed at during its 15 minutes of fame.

It is not just Clooney’s presence either, the other leads, with the exception of Jason Bateman who has turned into a very solid character actor, are just as disengaging. Perhaps they are meant to be that way, perhaps this film is trying to make a subtle point about corporate America, or modern life? Then again, perhaps not.

This film, astonishingly, garnered several Oscar nominations, not least in the for leading actors’ category. I am astonished, in fact, shocked, because if these truly were the performances that impressed the Academy this year, then I must really be looking for something else in a performance, not least something that makes me engage with the characters. That this film was also nominated for best film is, simply, unbelievable. However, the film didn’t actually win any Oscars.

Not that this is a really dire film – it might be more entertaining if it were. It is competently made, Jason Reitman no doubt having learned a few tricks from his more famous father, and I am sure he has paid his dues too. It’s just not a film where you can easily sympathise with the main players. Instead, it is the story of a rather soulless individual, Ryan Bingham (Clooney) who flies a lot around the USA firing people from their jobs to save their companies the bother. That is not a promising start for a character you think you ought to be liking, not least because he is played by George Clooney, the romantic leading man.

Bingham is single, rents a single bedroom apartment, likes his job, loves his lifestyle with its perks and fripperies. He has a slight, very slight as it happens, crisis, when, after meeting a beautiful woman (Farmiga) who seems to feel the same way and is leading a similar lifestyle, then attending his own estranged sister’s wedding, he realises what an empty vessel he is, and tries to change his ways. He tries very briefly, because, when he pursues Farmiga to the point where it becomes apparent that, without spoiling the plot, she will not agree to his plan, he returns to his old job. We are left to wonder what might happen to him next after a few days of behaving like a real human being with a little decency.

This film does not say anything positive about certain types of lifestyles, elements of which most of us will recognise, perhaps even from our own lives. Bingham is not a bad or evil man, but he is not someone you could turn to at a time of difficulty, nor even someone you could count on as a good friend. Perhaps he represents something else, like a crisis within 21st Century man as to what being a man really is, or means to those of us in the developed world at this time.

Whatever point this film may have trying to make, it will likely leave you feeling good about yourself, because almost certainly you will be a fuller human being leading a more worthwhile existence than those on show. But I didn’t need the Academy to nominate this film in order to work that out, and nor will you.

e-mail: FrLuke@angelic.com