George Clooney in a Nonformulaic Dramedy Nominated for Six Oscars
Co-written and directed by Jason Reitman (Juno, Thank You for Smoking), Up in the Air (2009) is quite contemporary in some ways, while in others it is reminiscent of older films like Billy Wilder's The Apartment (1960). George Clooney is superb playing Up in the Air's protagonist, and he and his two costars, Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick, all received Academy Award nominations for their performances. The film also got Oscar nods for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture.
The story centers on Ryan Bingham (Clooney), who gets paid to tell people in face-to-face meetings that they are being laid off. He flies from city to city, spending nearly all his time in airplanes, airports and hotels. He likes the lifestyle, but events transpire during the movie that change his outlook.
Bingham meets an attractive, free-spirited traveling businesswoman (Farmiga), and he begins to rendezvous with her in various cities for fun and sex. He is also forced to work with a hard-driving recent college grad (Kendrick) who is eager to carve out a place for herself in corporate America. Spending time with these two women gives the jaded Bingham a human connection to the world that he has not had in years.
The Up in the Air screenplay by Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner is marvelous, and the dialogue is outstanding with a number of memorable lines. George Clooney slips into the role of Ryan Bingham so naturally that he makes it look easy, and it's a pleasure to see two well-written, well-acted female roles as played by Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick.
Supplementary Materials
The DVD provides a lively and informative feature-length audio commentary by co-writer/director Jason Reitman, and he is supported by director of photography Eric Steelberg and first assistant director Jason Blumenfeld. Reitman talks about shooting in five cities (St. Louis, Detroit, Omaha, Las Vegas and Miami) and also about choosing the soundtrack music, including some by Dan Auerbach and Charles Atlas.
The DVD also contains five deleted scenes with a total runtime of a little over 15 minutes, and these can optionally be watched while listening to Reitman's commentary on them. Finally, there's a two-and-a-half-minute featurette about Up in the Air's excellent title sequence.
DVD Release Date: March 9, 2010
Feature Film Runtime: 1 hour 49 minutes
MPAA Rating: R for Language and Some Sexual Content