In 1992, social scientist Marc Augé published his book Non-Places, a study of how we are increasingly accustomed to "dead-space" zones such as airport departure lounges, corporate HQ reception areas, the escalator-stairwells in shopping malls, and hotel corridors with couches on which no one will ever sit. Unlike any room in your own house, in which you have a clear sense of its position relative to the other rooms and the position of your house relative to the surrounding neighbourhood, these are non-places – formless, temporary way-stations of commerce, existing outside geography. The landscape they form is the setting for Jason Reitman's recession satire Up in the Air, about a certain Ryan Bingham, played by George Clooney, a guy who is employed by a human resources consultancy to travel around the country, pretty well 52 weeks in the year, firing people.
In theory, Ryan gets called in because he has the expertise in "outplacement" counselling, which the ailing companies do not have in-house. In reality, he is the hatchet man. The bosses lack the nerve to do the firings themselves. It is smooth, plausible Ryan – and Clooney plays a corporate creation not unlike his fixit lawyer in the 2007 thriller Michael Clayton – who must set up shop in some small office, call in dozens of people one by one, and give them the bad news, along with the smooth, hypnotic pep-talk about it being a challenge and an opportunity.
Ryan loves his job. He loves the weightless sense of non-responsibility in never being home; he adores airports with their consumer-opportunities; he thrills to the submissive, company-prescribed greeting to which he is entitled, as a frequent flyer, at the fast-track check-in. Above all, he loves hotels and hotel rooms, perfectly neat, anonymous, with soothing, subdued lighting. Reitman has some great moments when Ryan must come home, and we see how entering his neglected apartment is like returning to a hotel room the maid, inexplicably, has not cleaned: depressing and scuzzy in the harsh daylight. Ryan is moreover having a delicious no-strings affair with another sexy exec with whom his flight-paths cross: Alex, played by Vera Farmiga, tells him she has the same uncomplicated needs as him: "Think of me as you, but with a vagin*."
Yet things get complicated; he has messy family issues with his sisters, and then his own boss Craig (Jason Bateman) introduces him to the dynamic young employee Natalie (Anna Kendrick) who has invented new iChat-style firing, which can be done over a webcam, long-distance, thus making expensive air-travel and Ryan's wonderfully footloose existence redundant. Craig forces the resentful Ryan to take uptight young Natalie on the road with him, to show her the ropes before the new virtual-sacking techniques are rolled out. Ryan finds himself defending old-school face-to-face dismissal on the grounds that it is more compassionate, and even feels stirrings of a new compassion in himself, yet must press on with his task of training this young woman to be really good at sacking people. And then … well, it's not quite what you're expecting.
Reitman's movie and his own directorial style reminded me a little of Alexander Payne, and particularly of Payne's About Schmidt (2002), another corporate-disillusion road movie, which also has a central setting in Omaha. The opening credit sequence shows a weirdly mesmeric montage of overhead shots of the cities below as if from Google Earth, or from the undercarriage of a plane.
But this film is considerably lighter and more lenient than Payne's, the picture it resembles more closely is Steven Spielberg's 2004 comedy The Terminal, about a homeless eastern European immigrant who finds himself living in an airport. Like that movie, Up in the Air is surrounded by brand names, albeit of a more upscale sort, and finds in these corporate identifiers something deeply attractive, even faintly narcotic. Ryan loves the sight of Hilton hotels and American Airlines, and takes their gratitude for his "loyalty" entirely seriously. Of course, we, the audience, are invited to understand that Ryan is thereby neglecting the real loyalties of family and emotional commitment, but nonetheless the movie responds to the undoubted, almost sensual pleasure of brand recognition.
Kendrick and Farmiga give nice performances as two of the women in his life: the quasi-daughter and quasi-wife. Reitman contrives a sharp encounter between the three of them – in, naturally, a hotel reception lounge – in which the younger woman explains to these anti-parents what her life goals are, and how depressing she finds their wise compromises of professional middle-age.
As for Clooney, the role is just right for him. It is amiable, genial, yet sophisticated; it does not demand the big head-waggling, saucer-eyed "comedy" routines that he is sometimes, unfortunately, tempted into, and yet it is funny and Clooney's likable presence is as warm on camera as it is in voiceover. There's nothing too profound here, and yet it works well as a smart, light cosmopolitan comedy: it's a snack, rather than a meal, but expertly made.
