Review: Up in the Air

[Neko]

Sean was bugging me for a while to rent this movie and I'm glad we finally got around to watching it.

Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) fires people for a living. He flies all over the country delivering the bad news to hundreds of employees getting the axe. Ryan enjoys his lifestyle, constantly in motion and unburdened by relationships or family or possessions. For Ryan to be "home" for more than a day--alone in his modest hotel room in Omaha--is torturous. He loves his work and the benefits of being a loyal customer to his airline, hotels, and rent-a-car agencies. However, his freedom is threatened when some young college grad proposes a new plan to revolutionize the company, which will take him out of the sky indefinitely.


Generally, it's a feel-good movie. Ryan is charming and likable (okay, it's mostly because he's George Clooney), even if he's not a character to which a lot of us can relate. He seems to live almost 100% in the moment. But, of course, movies like these are about challenging lifestyles such as Ryan's. I thought that Alex, his romantic interest, was a very positive female lead role. She's gorgeous, intelligent, funny, and mature (I believe their characters are close in age). I felt that she was a prime example that many strong women who know what they want are not "scary" like some tend to believe.
[Also, I loved Zach Galifianakis' cameo in the beginning. He's excellent as a miserable character.]

Even though it's not specific enough to be a major spoiler, I'm still going to treat it like one. So if you have any interest in seeing it, ignore this:

My favorite part was the ending. You sit through it expecting this very formulaic feel-good movie and the end is just... it's sad. It's sad but still manages to cling to good feelings. His character's life may not be changed forever but his outlook, his heart certainly is. I was pleasantly surprised with this ending while I was expecting some cliche, saccharine crap. And yet, even if it was some sickly sweet bullshit ending, it STILL would have been a good movie. At least, to me.

/5

I'm not saying it's the best movie* you'll ever see but, if it sounds interesting to you, I would definitely recommend it.

* Nor is it the best I've ever seen. (Like I could pick...) But it's now in the ranks of some of my favorites.

[cwbyrvr]

I know my roommates were going to watch this, they probably already have. I want to see it too, perhaps I can rent it soon.

[Veggie]

Oh my god, yes. I really enjoyed this movie. Not only was Zach Galifianakis, but J.K. Simmons and Danny McBride, who I both love.

Also, Anna Kendrick. She was the only good thing about New Moon, and now she probably has a decent shot at being an actual actress. I really related to her with the whole "I'm really young but my job requires that I act a lot more mature than I actually am/am capable of being," which is something a lot of movies do not show. I mean, if I was on track with school, I could have had my master's degree by the time I was 23, and while the movie industry does portray the fact that it is pretty common for relatively very young people to enter the work force, they do not often focus on the fact that they are still young and often still deal with normal young adult issues.