Up In The Air

These are my film notes for our first screening which is due to take place on Thursday 16th September:

Up in the Air

USA 2009 (109 minutes)

Director: Jason Reitman

Starring: George Clooney, Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick

Awards and Nominations

• Nominated for 6 Oscars: Clooney (Best Actor), Farmiga (Best Supporting Actress), Kendrick (Best Supporting Actress), Best Film, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay

• A further 44 wins and 53 nominations (including BAFTA nominations for Clooney, Farmiga and Kendrick)

“In one sense, it’s a movie about a man who fires people for a living. In another sense, it’s a movie about a man who collects air miles excessively. In another sense it’s about a man who meets a woman who’s so similar to him that even though they both believe in the idea of living solo, they begin to fall in love.”

Jason Reitman

Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) loves his job as an outplacement counsellor, travelling around the US laying off staff for managers too cowardly to do it for themselves and aiming to achieve a personal goal of earning ten million frequent flyer air miles with American Airlines. He is enjoying a casual relationship with Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga), another frequent flyer, but his footloose life becomes complicated when his boss asks him to mentor the dynamic Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick) who has developed a new method of lay-off using a webcam which saves money by reducing the need for expensive air travel.

Reitman wrote the screenplay with Sheldon Turner and, although it is based loosely on a novel by Walter Kim, stated that he wrote the three main parts with Clooney, Farmiga and Kendrick in mind. Both Reitman and Clooney were aware of the apparent similarities between Clooney’s public persona and the role he played, and Reitman confirmed that the casting of Clooney was key to the success of the film:

“If you're going to make a movie about a guy who fires people for a living and you still want to like him, that actor better be damn charming and I don't think there’s a more charming actor alive than George Clooney. I was very lucky he said yes.”

In his review of the film Philip French described George Clooney as giving his best performance to date and the character of Bingham as the best role that he has played: Bingham is “Arthur Miller’s Willie Loman reshaped as a romantic hero for the post-industrial world, burdened not by a case of samples but credit cards”.

But the film is very much an ensemble piece and both Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick won much praise for their supporting performances. Prior to her success in Up in the Air Vera Farmiga was better known as a stage actress, although she did appear memorably as the Mother in The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas (2008). Anna Kendrick played the role of Jessica in Twilight before being cast in this film, and has subsequently played the same character in each of the sequels. Her most recent role is in Scott Pilgrim vs the World (2010).

Jason Reitman is the son of Ivan Reitman who directed the two Ghostbuster films in the 1980s. His first film as a director was Thank You For Smoking (2005) but he made his name with the multi-award winning Juno (2007).