Fly Me Away

Up in the Air

Ryan Bingham has a job that keeps him in the air throughout the year, a fact he is most pleased with. Spending most of his time flying around the country, he has taken to a lifestyle of no commitments, always on the move. When a young woman comes to his company with an idea that will keep him grounded, he takes her on the road with him to show her how it needs to be done, and hopefully preserve his way of life.

Jason Reitman seems to have a way of going about movies, taking something reviled and reveling in it. With Thank you for Smoking we saw a spokesperson for the Tabacco Industry as our protagonist, talking about spin and marketing as a way of life. Juno showed us Teen Pregnancy as not something tragic and forever heartbreaking, but as something snarky and something to laugh at. Here we have a man who not only has to deal with airlines, but prefers to be there than home.

It's interesting to me that his protagonists are never truley good people Thank you for Smoking was a Tabacco Spokesperson, Juno a pregnant teen who was cynical and almost callous to those around her, and now a man who fires people for a living, sure he helps them along the way to finding a new path, but he doesn't really seem to care about them. The man is empty, with no real connections...

This movie follows this broken man as his lifestyle is challenged. He sees an end to his anchorless ways, and fights to regain it. All the while toppling over a romance story that shows that maybe being grounded wouldn't be so horrible. The movie plays with these ideas of keeping yourself free and tying yourself down to something throughout, an amazingly small main cast showing so many aspects of life on the move. All concluding in an ending that's almost bittersweet, despite everyone getting what they want.

This is a movie that should be seen, it should be seen multiple times, alone and with friends. It's an amazingly simple story that really opens into some complex themes if you let it. When you see it on the shelf March 9th, pick it up.