Up in the Air (2009) Movie

Every once in a long while, we happen to catch a movie that really speaks to us, that we can relate to, and this movie, Up in the Air ("UA") is that movie for me. So, my review of the movie is going to be far from partial.

The Slog Reviews: 9/10. It's not possible to review this movie at all. The most decent attempt I could find on the web is here. I don't think I could do better than that review. So, I'll just say that you have to sit there and watch it. All 2hours of it. And it will not be a waste of your limited time here on this earth.

As the director put it"The movie is about the examination of a philosophy. What if you decided to live hub to hub, with nothing, with nobody?"

The lead character, Ryan Bingham is depicted as living out the aforementioned philosophy in his job which involves flying an average of 11 months a year to various companies in the big US of A retrenching workers. He is shown at the start of the film to live out of a small cabin-sized suitcase with cordial but distant family ties to his two sisters. He gets elite status at airlines, hotels and car rentals by virtue of his frequent patronage and one of his goals is to be part of a club with less than 10 members in the whole world - the club where members have chalked up at least 10 million airmiles. He admits happily to never having considered marriage or children and is observed to be happier than those who are married. In fact, he gives motivational seminars where he encourages participants to imagine putting all that they own/all their relationship in a backpack. Participants are then asked to imagine the weight of all in the backpack, the straps biting into their shoulders and their progress forward slowed down by the heavy burden they tote around. In short, Ryan believes whole-heartedly that one should go through life unencumbered with anything (including relationships) and anyone.

That is until he meets 2 women in succession. 1 of them is Alex whom he meets at an airport lounge and is also a frequent flyer. She has an exceptionally amazing body (we see her naked from the back) seriously. Esp for a woman that age. The other woman is young Cornell graduate Natalie who is the flavor of the month with the boss of his company.Natalie seeks to introduce a new program which will reduce cost for the co - the new program will allow termination to be done via video teleconferencing instead of face to face with the workers to be laid-off. Anyway, Ryan gets romantically involved with Alex and when he describes the relationship with her as "casual" to Natalie, Natalie goes off on him about the importance of relationships and calls him immature. So Ryan decides to get more serious with Alex and invites her to his sister's wedding. There, the groom gets cold feet on the day of the wedding - ah, that's the part to watch-and the groom questions the whole point of it - marriage, having children, getting old and dying. Ryan is forced to give the groom a pep talk by Ryan's older sister, and the pep talk is against what Ryan has always believed in but he does such a good job of talking about going through life with a co-pilot that the groom gets up and proceeds with the wedding. Alex and Ryan's relationship are shown to deepen more during that period and when Ryan is asked to give a talk about the backpack, he walks out after the first sentence. He goes to Chicago where Alex is and finds out that she is married with kids. She calls him later and explains to him that all he is is an escape from her real life and that she is adult about it and he can still call her. He hangs up the phone without saying bye. After that he is shown to achieve his goal of 10million miles and when the captain asks him where he is from, he says from here - as in, up in the air, he doesn't have anywhere else or anyone to call home. When he goes back to the office, he finds that Natalie has quit. 1 of the axed workers they had met killed herself as she said she would.

Now through Natalie's character, 1 of the themes explored is about the humanity of terminating someone via any method than face to face. She introduces teleconferencing to terminate workers to save cost for the company but her boyfriend whom she said, fits her checklist and whom she moved to Omaha to be with, "terminates" the relationship with her via sms "we should see other pp". It is perhaps then that she has doubts about her work. And it comes to a head when she views the varied reactions of those who have been told that they are laid off - her planned standard reply of "people who have conquered mountains have sat where you have" seem inadequate in the face of the tears, fears and anger of those told "that their position in the company is no longer available". Natalie's character is also used to challenge Ryan's way of life. At 1 point, he asks her to sell him "marriage" and when she asks him "what about dying alone" he tells her that his parents died alone in a foster home and that everyone dies alone" ie marriage doesn't solve this problem at all. This sounds familiar to me - I've read that at the end of our life, all we have is ourselves and God. Ah well. Natalie's character is also used to illustrate how marriage is really about settling after some point in time. Alex tells her that by the time a woman is 34, all requirements (for a man) go out of the window, and a woman only hopes that he is taller, has a headful of hair although this isn't a deal breaker and that he earns more than she does.

So well, for those who know me, I guess from the parts of the movie that I've focused on above, it would be easy to see how I relate to the movie and the characters. The movie doesn't have a happy ending I'm afraid - it shows Ryan going back to his life before Alex and Natalie - the one time that he abandons his philosophy and reaches out for a co-pilot in his life (Alex), he crashes and gets burnt (she's married w kids and all he is, is an escape!). So, I guess the movie doesn't provide hope, could be said to be mildly depressing but hey, isn't that life or how one could choose to look at and live life?