Movie Review: Up in the Air

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Up in the Air, starring George Clooney.

I liked Up in the Air quite a bit. The actors are all appealing, even if their characters are not. The film is nice to look at, and the story is always interesting. My only problem with the film is the ending.

George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a man whose job is to go from city to city and fire people for companies that are unwilling to do the dirty work themselves. It is a job he is good at. He can handle all of the various reactions of the terminated employees, from shock to disappointment to anger. Bingham is always in the air, flying from job to job. He has become completely isolated and unattached, has no friends and rarely talks to and never sees his family. He is so isolated he has come to advocate the lifestyle. He is a part-time motivational speaker. His message is to "Empty the Backpack" of everything from material goods to friends and family. All these things just weigh you down, he claims, keeping you from moving fast. And that is what Bingham wants to do, move fast, because according to him people are sharks, and if they don't move fast they die.

So the movie seems to be about Bingham's journey from this position to one where he realizes that he does need people, including family friends and lovers. The movie does a good job of this. You can see the transition in the way Bingham interacts as he is thrown in with a new co-worker, finds a lover, and decides that his family does matter and he can make a difference in all of these peoples lives. In the first part of the movie, we find out that Bingham's biggest goal in life is to become only the seventh person to get ten million miles on his airline club card. When he reached this goal, we see that it doesn't mean much to him anymore. His goals have changed. he can't even complete his motivational talks now.

But the ending cuts this transition off abruptly. He is left alone again, in his home in the air. Does he stay in touch with his family, after saving his sister's wedding and providing a generous gift so that his sister and her new husband can achieve one of their dreams? Does he ever hear again from his now former co-worker, after demonstrating that she has earned his friendship and respect? Does he ever try to reach out and find someone else to love, after finding out that his previous effort was based on a lie? We don't know. All we know is that at the end, George Clooney's character is doing the same things he was at the beginning.