UP IN THE AIR (2009)

If you were to leave your house tomorrow, knowing that you could never return, what would you pack in your suitcase? Such a question forces us to reckon with just how many superfluous things we have in our lives. It’s also a question that Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) asks his audience at one of his many talks, where he explains his philosophy as simply as is possible: “We weigh ourselves down until we can’t even move. And make no mistake, moving is living.” His entire life is built around this one ideal—never stop moving.

Last year, he spent 322 days on the road, travelling from one corporation to the next, where he fired loyal employees for executives who weren’t keen on doing it themselves. That’s just his line of work. It may not be the nicest job, but someone’s got to do it, and the lifestyle this job affords Ryan satisfies the tenets of his philosophy perfectly. It allows him to engage with people at a superficial level, engage in frivolous sex, all while never having to fill his backpack with more than what makes him comfortable.

However, that’s all about to change. When Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick), a young upstart, arrives at the company with a plan to revolutionise their business model, Ryan realises his entire lifestyle is threatened. Instead of flying around the country every day, he’ll log onto his computer and fire people over a screen. As he explains the business to Natalie, they both come to understand much about themselves, each other, and the world around them that they’d never previously considered.

A surprisingly touching comedy, Up in the Air explores the effects of an international economic crisis through the experiences of three people, each misguided and confused in their own way. Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner’s screenplay features a subtle, layered analysis of a country’s ethos and the corrosive mentality it can instil in normal people. In this poignant look at modern alienation and our disoriented pursuit of lasting relationships, Up in the Air is a story with great substance underneath its attractive surface.

If nothing else, Up in the Air excels at connecting the characters to the story’s overarching themes. This is evident in how Ryan, our main protagonist, is effectively an agent of chaos, the dispassionate and calculated Angel of Death: this strange man, a well-dressed, well-spoken individual you’ve never met before, enters your life when you least suspect it, only to inform you that your time is up. And each time Ryan fires an employee, they have the same question for him: “Who the fuck are you, man?”

It’s the disoriented question of a person who’s realising that the world as they knew it is crumbling to pieces around them. And who, precisely, has invited such utter devastation into their lives? The question also reflects the wholly impersonal nature in which corporate America treats people; not only are these workers being told they’re expendable, but this shattering information is conveyed by a total stranger. Ryan’s anonymity reflects a shift in a country’s values. Namely, that people are defined only by their usefulness, and tradition has fallen by the wayside: there is no more neighbourly affection, and your life will be upended by someone who has never even met you before.

The first time Ryan addresses his audience through voiceover, it subtly hints at this theme: “That’s a good question… who the fuck am I?” When we first meet him, he’s smarmy, suave, and just cocky enough to remain likeable (but only just). However, as the plot progresses, Ryan must reassess his answer to this question repeatedly, and a nuanced character study emerges. Because it’s this central question, humorously established in the opening monologue, that drives the narrative forwards. Specifically, how does one hold onto a deeper sense of self in a society that’s decidedly shallow? Or perhaps even more challenging, can we define and understand ourselves at all?

If we define ourselves based on what we do for a living, a fundamental aspect of one’s identity has been stripped when they’re suddenly let go. Athletes discuss the identity crisis they experience when they can no longer compete at the highest level: the goals and the lifestyle formed such an integral part of their ego that it’s confusing having to readjust to life as an average citizen. Similarly, Ryan feels his sense of self come under threat by Natalie’s presence. Ironically, he hasn’t lost his living, but his way of life, resulting in his own fugue state.

His life is an escape from his own emotional paralysis, and the notion of being forced to lead a normal existence is overwhelming. That’s because his job is a manifestation of his neurosis: never stop moving, never set your feet on solid ground for long enough to consider why you can’t help but keep running. However, much like any strong coping mechanism, he doesn’t view this compulsion as a weakness, but a strength—he perceives himself as a shark, and so his constant motion is merely a demonstration of his vitality. When Natalie warmly sells her new business model to a room of agents like Ryan (“You get to come home”) his expression imparts his utter horror with the idea: the idea of stasis is tantamount to death.

It’s evident that Ryan’s terrified of commitment. His backpack philosophy, which Natalie rather aptly describes as a “bullshit” credo that only truly serves to bolster and augment his “cocoon of self-banishment,” ensures that he’ll never have to face the pain of authentic human connection. The analogy also allows him to dismiss human emotion and tradition—like love, marriage, and homeownership—as being the sentimental, antiquated platitudes of bygone generations. From his perspective, anyone in contemporary society would be wise to drop it all and go.

One can see how his profession directly feeds into his philosophy: corporate culture has steadily eroded traditional values. Ryan is incessantly bombarded by consumer-oriented superficiality, which provides the promise of antiseptic familiarity and faux cosiness, in addition to interactions that never go deeper than the surface. The fake corporate pleasantries Ryan receives when he checks in at the airport aren’t just the only constant human interaction in his life, but the one he prefers: “Pleasure to see you again, Mr Bingham!”

And ultimately, it’s this exact lifestyle, this hyper-individualism that’s promoted and fostered by consumer capitalism, that causes Ryan to feel deeply lonely. He realises that his is a hollow existence. The clinical, inhuman manner in which companies deal with their employees filters down and creates a sense of distance. And so, Reitman’s depiction of corporate culture reveals the root cause of alienation in modern America. As explored in Alice in the Cities (1974), Fight Club (1999), and American Beauty (1999), a mass preoccupation with pointless, shallow things leads everyone to feel fundamentally alone.

Initially, Ryan takes pride in this, believing it to be a fact of life. Stunning Natalie with his cavalier solipsism, he reveals that marriage is by no means a cure for isolation: “Make no mistake, we all die alone. Now those cult members in San Diego, with the sneakers and the Kool-Aid, they didn’t die alone. I’m just saying, there are options.” Both amusing and startling, he appears to believe that we are each set apart at an essential level. Those who think otherwise are usually fanatics and end up committing suicide en masse.

Quite the outlook. It’s unclear what exactly has made Ryan this way; with only a brief insight into his upbringing and family life, we’re left questioning why he fashioned such an elaborate integument for himself. Over the course of the story, it’s a shell which he tries to overcome, but finds this to be exceedingly difficult: the life that he’s built ensures superficial, shallow connections are the only ones that he can cultivate. When he attempts to turn his relationship with Alex (Vera Farmiga) into something more than a casual fling, he’s crestfallen to learn that’s not possible: “You are an escape. You’re a break from our normal lives… you’re a parenthesis.”

While the young Natalie is appalled by Ryan’s worldview, she fails to realise that she’s walking down the exact same path of toxic egocentrism. She’s robotic and impersonal in her interactions with people, and while she majored in psychology, she seems to have no genuine understanding of how people think. Her bookish intelligence and fastidious appearance belies a lack of wisdom. When firing a man over the internet, she attempts to placate him by inviting him to consider the new opportunities that will await him. He’s in disbelief: “Greater opportunities? I’m 57-fucking-years old.” This is a reality the 23-year-old Natalie can’t quite comprehend.

However, what separates her from Ryan is her belief in human relationships. Indeed, juxtaposing their vastly different reactions to heartache provides insight into their divergent mentalities. As both Natalie and Ryan experience the euphoria and disappointments that come from human relationships, Ryan considers emotion and attachment to be the bane of people’s lives, whereas Natalie merely considers it part of life. She even strives to optimise her love life as though it were a business: “Maybe I should just date women.” Unfortunately, Alex informs her that humans aren’t quite as simple as the finances of a multi-million dollar business: “Tried it. We’re no picnic ourselves…”

There can be no peaks without valleys. Alex is Natalie’s foil, the embodiment of all the things the young, naive woman is not. She’s shallow, and well aware of the fact: “We’re two people who get turned on by elite status. I think cheap is our starting point.” Alex is content to treat and be treated like superficial symbols of status, which initially meant she and Ryan made a great pair. Unfortunately, it’s Ryan who’s hurt when he discovers that he truly is everything he’s always pretended to be: a monument to 20th-century individualism, no more and no less. There’s nothing of real substance between them.

As such, Up in the Air is an understated look at modern loneliness, the importance of strong, sustainable human relationships, and how the life plans we make for ourselves only serve to create an illusion of control. It’s also bolstered by career-best performances from Clooney and Kendrick. His glib, gleefully misanthropic demeanour at the film’s beginning is reminiscent of Bill Murray’s role as Phil Connors in Groundhog Day (1993): you’d probably hate them if you met them, but they’re entertaining to watch from a distance. His character growth is in equal parts believable and solemn, and Clooney’s subtle facial expressions reveal a man suddenly at odds with the life he’s created.

Kendrick’s showing as the capable yet conflicted Natalie remains her most compelling role, and it’s impressive that she holds her own with a face and name as established as Clooney’s. Truthfully, there are scenes where she steals the show entirely, oscillating between a prim and proper adult to a frightened adolescent so seamlessly that you’d be hard-pressed not to believe her. Vera Farmiga, Jason Bateman, and cameos from J.K Simmons and Zach Galifianakis provide able support throughout the entire film.

Reitman allows the tone to adjust throughout the film gently, so that the growth each character experiences is reflected in the film’s overall mood. In the opening sequence, there’s fast, brisk editing, with a montage portraying Ryan’s lifestyle as suave as it is empty. However, the cuts become slower as the comedy lessens and the sobering drama increases; the slower, more meditative editing style reflects Ryan’s change of mentality. He has moved from being a shark to a wannabe swan.

At one point in the story, a character is found reading The Velveteen Rabbit, a book that’s too pertinent to the story’s themes to be a mere accident. It tells the story of a stuffed rabbit, who believes that the love of his owner will make him real. The story mirrors the lack in Ryan’s life, the one that he’s tried so hard to ignore: only love (in whatever form that may take) can make Ryan whole, but he won’t find it until he stops running. Not until he lets himself start filling his backpack will he ever feel like more than cold-blooded.

Because now he sees that there are things in that backpack worth keeping: friends, family, and lovers with whom you can become truly intimate. When his soon-to-be brother-in-law becomes frightened of tying the knot, Ryan asks him a question: “If you think about it, your favourite memories, the most important moments in your life—were you alone?” He may just as well be directing the question at himself.

We judge the merit of our existence in relation to others. We don’t determine the worth of our lives by a look at our bank accounts, but by the happiness we have imparted onto others. Or, as Ryan succinctly puts it: “Life is better with company.” Because truthfully, we find purpose in the people we love and who love us. It’s our human connections that make life special, precious, and worth living. Whether we like it or not, that demands a certain dependency on other people, a bit of trust and a lot of hope. You can fly away for as long as you want, but if you ever want to be truly held by someone you love, you’ll have to take a leap of faith.

USA | 2009 | 109 MINUTES | 1.85:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH

Cast & Crew

director: Jason Reitman.
writers: Jason Reitman & Sheldon Turner (based on the book by Walter Kim)
starring: George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick, Danny McBride, Jason Bateman, Zach Galifianakis & J.K Simmons.