Movie 43: Up In The Air

Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) is an expert at firing people and he travels from city to city doing it. He lives on planes and in airports, always moving, and has an empty backpack philosophy that he gives talks on about not being weighed down by possessions and connections. One day Ryan is recalled to base as the company is going to replace its current system with a new internet one design by Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick). Ryan then has to take Natalie along with him to show her how its done which he isn’t happy about but may help him prove his point that this is a face to face thing.

And along his travels he meets up with Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga), a kindred traveller. They form a relationship of sorts. The two women in his life may cause him to rethink his current life goal, hitting 10 million air miles, and aim for a more conventional one of a family.

I think my synopsis lost it a bit at the end there. This is a character piece for all intents and purposes, tied in with a relationship movie. Not a romantic comedy as its not that fluffy.

Character pieces live and die on whether you like the characters and whether they are well formed. I have probably said that already this year. A character like Ryan Bingham should be hard to like. He’s a grim reaper, he swoops in, destroys your life then leaves. But he’s not hard to like. He cares about what he does and he’s somewhat damaged himself. And he’s played by Gorgeous George. It’s not easy to NOT like Gorgeous George and he’s at his best here.

Relationship films only work if the chemistry is there. And it is, Alex and Ryan’s relationship develops naturally and there are nice little coupley type moments that wouldn’t be believable if the two actors didn’t click.

So the film works. I wouldn’t call it outstanding, it might be a bit underdeveloped or something. It won’t be something that gets pulled off my shelf any time soon for a second watch. But it is a well put together movie. But like the main characters it feels like its best if it just flits in to my life then flits off again, maybe being run in to some day on a movie channel and watched for a bit. That sounds like criticism but its not, MOST films are like that if you think about it.

It does have one particularly stand out quality though. Danny McBride. I am not a fan. I thought I might be, but I hadn’t seen him in anything I particularly like him in. He’s a new skool SNL style comic (dunno if he’s ever been in SNL) and his characters, that I’ve seen, were unfunny and just arses. I don’t hate him in this. Sure he’s barely in it, but I didn’t want to skip the scenes he was in. That’s pretty frikkin remarkable to be honest.

Check it out, possibly on pay per view in a hotel.

Next up: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus