On your knees, take a deep breath, straighten your back, and keep your chin up…this will be a perfect way to avoid being hit by the scythe of cynicism and a deluge of non-delectable views on love/commitment that the film offers.
“Up in the Air” is the story of Ryan (George Clooney), a man on the move, who works for a company that has been outsourced the job of employment terminations! (The film opens with a slice of the hacked employees’ reactions ranging from plain disbelief to suicidal rejoinders, from shock and anger to mute acceptance.) Ryan likes to travel the length and breadth of the country to serve pink slips to the employees while getting kicked and abused for the same all the while. “To know me is to fly with me” is his refrain, as he deftly handles the formalities at an airport that one would think of as a tetchy thingamabob and laps up the sights of a familiar aerial world around him. “Coming home” is what he eschews and taking the “next” step in love is what he thinks of as impractical. He “guides” people to detach from the things they have stocked their lives with – relations, friends, love et al. As he gets on to a soap box delivering homilies on non-commitment/ finding one’s true calling, you fail to understand how a man who handles a truckload of emotions daily fails to remain untouched by it.
Enter Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick) and Alex (Vera Farmiga), who posit as an antithesis of each other. The former is Ryan’s co-worker who thwarts the idea of crisscrossing places and prefers a more “grounded” method of layoffs through live internet. She also believes in love and has followed her boyfriend to a new city in order to take the progressive steps in her relationship. Natalie fits as slackly into her job as a round ball in a square hole. On the other hand, Alex like Ryan believes in forming casual relationships with people she meets during her frequent air trips. Natalie is young and immature; Alex is older and has fixated views on relationships which become clear as she tells the former about the non-dreamy and practical qualities she wants in her dream man.
Ryan and Natalie are at odds on views on love. Natalie wants him to propose love to Alex, while Ryan dismisses it as ridiculous. But slowly as events unfold in his life, he realizes what he is missing in his life is the ability to stay grounded and form stable ties. He decides to give his heart a chance to love, but is disappointed with the results. He goes back to the old world that he came from, though disenchanted with his own views that he held earlier.
In one of the scenes, where Ryan’s future brother-in-law ponders as to why he should get married at all; you are as mealy-mouthed as Ryan to explain the reasons for a matrimonial union. But that’s when it makes sense to you; love and relationships are not formed by choice, it represents the coming together of two people to conjoin in their mutual lives, and who decide to give each other their unconditional love and support. And that’s what the film fails to communicate, and that’s why it will pander only to the cynical tastes of a certain section of audience.
You wish George Clooney’s character had the shades of a more romantic version in “One Fine Day”. But his acting is effortless and fits into the mold of a cynical man perfectly. Overall, a good attempt by Reitman but you wish the movie had a little something to light it up just the way love sparks the life around us with its divine and soft flames.