By Eddy
The most appropriate term is “Road Warrior”. That is the breed of Men/Women who spend huge amounts of time of their lives on the road. In a small way I consider myself a part of this group. Not a hardcore member (though Divina would enthusiastically disagree with that assessment) as was George Clooney’s character in Up in the Air, but definitely a card carrying member. Thus I believe this status affords me a bit of an insider view of what the life of such a road warrior life consists of and how it could really de-evolve and derail your relationships with your fellow man. The life of airport lounges, free drinks, eating out, sitting in your hotel room and work isn’t all that it is cracked up to be. Notice that much of it can be to be done by alone other than work. That’s a lot of time to think about things…maybe too much time.
Let’s dive in to the movie now.
George stars as Ryan Bingham, who travels all around the US as a restructuring consultant. Basically he is paid to go to your company and layoff thousands of people. For this job he travels over 300 days of the year. Obviously, business has been very good due to the current recession. Ryan’s job keeps him so separated from life, that he has been consumed with the fact that cutting ties with relationships and possessions is the best way to live. He believes it to the point that he even participates in a circuit of motivational speaking extolling his philosophy.
In the end he has no attachment to anything: his family (estranged), his friends (he has none), his home (when we see the apartment it was so sterile and unused that I thought it was a hotel room at first). Now also consider that his job is to fire people his emotional disconnection with everything appears to be complete. The only real passion that he covets is the accumulation of Airline miles. He never uses them but wants to achieve a total that only a handful of people have flown.
Things begin to change with a chance meeting (and subsequent start of a sexual relationship) with a fellow Road Warrior, Alex (Vera Farmiga), who is basically the female equivalent of Ryan. Add up on top of this the threatening of his “on the road all the time” due to technology and his estranged sister’s wedding and you have all the ingredients of a self realizing epiphany. Now I won’t get too deep in the rest of the story, but its is obviously that Ryan begins to learn a bit more of himself and whether his philosophy has any validity at all.
I found the movie to really be well made and while it was more of a Melancholy drama than I expected from Jason Rietman (Director of Thank You For Smoking). I was able to pull from it more of an appreciation of my own life and situation. While Ryan never had anywhere to come home to, I at least have Divina and my son to welcome me home after a long trip. It is those thoughts of returning to something that make all the sadness of leaving more bearable. To me it is hard to imagine living the sort of lifestyle that Ryan Bingham lives without anything else to hold on to, I would never last. Also, his obsession with airline miles even furthers his separation with others around him, his need to accumulate miles has him constantly moving and climbing his total to some obscene amount that has no real value outside the tiny circle that covets such things. I personally haven’t asked anyone what there miles total was (in the movie it seems the equivalent to asking how well endowed you were or what your social security number is).
Yet those thoughts aside, I though the presentation of the film was very well done and certainly deserving of the Oscar nominations that it received (best picture, lead actor, supporting actress and best director). The performances were top rate; I could even see Clooney earning his first best Oscar for this performance; though it will apparently be a close contested competition with Jeff Bridges. Vera Farmiga does a wonderful job in her role, I found her charming with enough of a masculine undertone to her performance that she was able to give that “one of the guys” attitude needed for the role without losing any of her sex appeal. She certainly struck a great balance.
All in all, I thought this was a very good movie. Don’t come in expecting a wonderfully uplifting story, if you want that go watch The Princess and The Frog. But if you want to see some very good performances and a story and characters that may make you think about yourself and the life you live, then give it a try.
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