Up In the Air Review

What am I missing? Why don't I like these films? Up In The Air arrives with glowing reviews, solid if unspectacular box office, Oscar buzz and the promise of Gorgeous George being, well, gorgeous presumably. At least on that level Up In The Air doesn't disappoint. It's the third film from Jason Reitman after Thank You For Smoking and Juno. I REALLY have to avoid turning this review into a Juno rant. If paragraphs stop suddenly, it'll only be me putting the brakes on yet another "why Juno is actually terrible" tirade.

I'm doing it already. Okay, back to Up In the Air.

Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a man whose job it is to fly from city to city and inform unsuspecting employees that they have lost their jobs. Bingham is world class at his job. Soothing, calm, understanding. But he is empty inside. Becoming one of only a handful of people ever to clock up ten million air miles is his life's ambition. People and relationships weigh him down and the few days he spends at home are the unhappiest of the year, preferring to live his life in airports and hotels. When fresh faced company hotshot Anna Kendrick blusters in with a new scheme to do the firing remotely, eliminating the need for Clooney to travel the country, he is enormously threatened and is ordered by slimey company boss Jason Bateman to take her with him to show her how firing people is done and what it's all about.

There has been much talk in recent years about Hollywood studios bastardising "Indie" cinema, popularising it, packaging and marketing it and serving it out as an apparently high brow alternative to their mainstream fare. Up In the Air is the very epitome of this phenomenon, a film every bit as mainstream and, in all honestly, as hollow and empty as the Summer special effects movies. Getting Clooney to do the film is crucial for two reasons. Firstly, on this same point, it gives the film cache. "George Clooney is in it? It must be political and have something to say."Secondly, it means that a thoroughly unlikable character is now made more palatable to a broad audience and the awards voters. This notion is undeniable and transparent and is completely against the ethos of genuine independent cinema which as a result makes it the most compelling point in the argument that films like this do not represent genuine independent cinema and are merely low(er) budgeted Hollywood, mainstream films. Up In The Air isn't the worst film ever made. It just isn't particularly good and its pretensions make its ultimate emptiness all the more apparent.

The notion of a guy talking the talk in a job where empathy is crucial not actually having genuine emotional empathy towards others is an interesting one. I haven't read the book so I can't comment on how well it works on the page. The problem onscreen though is that, this idea slowly comes to represent the film as a whole. Up In The Air doesn't make a genuine connection, at least it doesn't with me, and I felt that I was being played the whole time. A few funny moments and Clooney's charisma and charm make you go with it while you watch it but, stepping out of the cinema to assess what I had watched, I found myself with little to say because there's very little substance. What makes it worse is that, director Reitman intercuts interviews with people who have actually lost their jobs in real life. This comes off as a very cynical way to give the film weight and make it seem as if it's offering a commentary of some kind on our current economic crisis, which it isn't. And of course there's the dreaded "alternative indie music" soundtrack. This has really come to represent a certain kind of film in my mind, a kind of film I just cannot abide. Jason Reitman is the new Cameron Crowe, just with less schmaltz and slightly more credibility, and the perfectly placed but sledgehammer obvious indie songs coming every 3 minutes with "wounded" singers asserting that karma won't let them down no matter what Annie said when she broke their heart, or whatever emotionally contrived crap happened to conveniently rhyme with the last line, only underscores this further. I don't believe the songs, I don't believe the film, there is actually nothing being said here but the packaging is top notch.

The film isn't terrible, it's just nowhere near as good as it wants you to think it is. Up In The Air is better than Thank You For Smoking and WAY better than Juno, although it is definitely cut from the same cloth and suffers from exactly the same problems. That is also faint praise given that immersing one's head in acid is better than watching Juno...

PARAGRAPH ABORTED - JUNO RANT DETECTED.

5/10