Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) fires people. This sounds simple enough, but from the very first shot we know that this is an extraordinarily tough process. Bingham must be reassuring yet stern. He describes his firing technique as taking the fired person on a boat, rowing them through foggy oceans until land just barely peeks through the mist, and then throwing them overboard and making them swim the rest of the way. Jason Reitman, the director and co-writer, hired real people who were recently fired to play most of those roles. They were asked to improvise their lines when learning of their character’s termination. As a result, their dialogue has an uncomfortably sad tinge. Correctly interacting with people at their most vulnerable takes a special sort of person.
Clooney’s charisma vitalizes a character that any other actor might have made contemptible. He works for a company that is hired by other companies to do their firing for them. As a result, Bingham travels frequently around the country. He is a pure isolationist. He prides himself on living out of a suitcase. He rarely speaks to his family, and then only briefly. He is so faithful in his lifestyle that he gives motivational speeches advocating the single life. He does not believe in love nor marriage. Clooney just has to smile, though, and all is forgiven. He is an extremely selfish man that we can’t help liking.
Bingham’s lifestyle is threatened when his company plans to permanently ground its employees by introducing a new system of firing people via Internet video chat. The idea was planned out by the company’s newest employee, a young ambitious woman fresh from Cornell named Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick). She is tasked with accompanying Bingham on his last jobs as an apprentice. She must have been the sort of kid whom all the other students resented for making the best presentations in class. Keener’s staunch professionalism has so repressed any girlishness that when her demeanor is cracked, she explodes like a stick of dynamite. She serves as a foil to Bingham’s lifestyle, constantly questioning his refusal to commit to anyone. Kendrick embodies her character so well that I came out of the theater convinced that she must have the exact same personality as her character.
During his travels, Bingham meets Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga), who is basically a female version of himself. Within five minutes of their first contact they are leaning over a table comparing the multitude of plastic cards they keep and we know she is the one for him. They each want to be happy together, but neither of them can commit, for different reasons.
“Up in the Air” is a nice change of pace from the trend of protagonists working at dead-end jobs and hating themselves for it. Ryan Bingham loves his work, and we like him for that, at least. Jason Reitman has once again succeeded in making the smartest and hippest mainstream movie of the year.
