Directed by Jason Reitman (Juno, Thank You for Smoking) and starring George Clooney and Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air opens this November. The film was recently shown at both the Telluride and Toronto film festivals and early word is superb. Reitman is said to have delivered a very poignant, relevant, and well-crafted dramedy, reminiscent of Cameron Crowe and James L. Brooks in their primes. Also, the media has already noticed and reported on the parallels between the film's content--corporate firings--and the economis crisis.

So, we have a crowd-pleasing, well-received film with sociopolitical overtones and a star the Academy loves. This WILL WIN.

In:

Me
Jon

indieWIRE reaction:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononho ... _will_fly/

Folks lined up for two hours on a rainy Telluride Saturday to get into Up in the Air. Hundreds were turned away. Writer-director Jason Reitman (and obsessive airline mile collector) played the crowd like a pro, hoping that the movie would live up to their expectations. He didn’t need to worry. The director, who debuted Juno here two years ago at the same theater, delivers a winner. Loosely based on Walter Kirn’s novel, Reitman’s updated movie, which he started working on six years ago, has become, with the economic downturn, far more timely. It’s a witty, charming and moving exploration of a world we all recognize.

It’s about the loneliness of a long-distance air traveller—a commitment-phobe not unlike George Clooney, who decided to stare that aspect of himself in the face, Reitman said after the film. “To know me is to fly with me,” says Ryan Bingham, who wings around the country to gently but sternly deliver lay-off news that bosses are too chicken to do on their own.

The movie reveals where we are now. The opening credits set the tone, as a zingy cover of “This land was made for you and me” accompanies a montage of fly-over spots. Bingham starts up a flirtation with a fellow-traveler (Vera Farmiga) as they slap down rival credit cards and compare flier miles and mile high club banter. He wants to break the 10 million miles mark—in the past year he spent 43 days at home. The rest he was on the road. She seems to be his perfect match.

But times are changing and Ryan’s air-travel miles are endangered when his job as a downsizer no longer requires flying: they will give the news via video conferencing instead. Young corp exec Anna Kendrick (Rocket Science) shadows Ryan on the road as he attempts to show her the more human face of delivering bad news. The movie reveals the gap between the tech-savvy younger generation and their elders. At one point Kendrick is on the phone with her boyfriend and says, “I don’t even think of him that way, he’s old.” Clooney does a double take in the mirror. She later tells him he’s in a “cocoon of self-banishment.” Looking lean, fit and grey, Clooney opens up here, moving from cockily confident “I am a rock” status to yearning vulnerability.

The movie does not offer easy solutions. Reitman interviews 25 real people who lost their jobs, who are genuinely moving. Over the closing credits he uses a song about job loss given to him by 50-ish Kevin Renick during filming on audiotape. “I like to ask questions with my movies,” Reitman said at the Q & A. “This is the most personal movie I’ve made and could be the most personal movie I’ll ever make.”

Award season beckons. This one is in the hunt.

And Kristopher Tapley of In Contention's rave:

http://incontention.com/?p=13147

Jason Reitman began adapting Walter Kirn’s novel “Up in the Air” five or six years ago. The country was on better economic turf, he wasn’t married, he didn’t have a child. He was drawn to a book jacket with a quote from his friend, “Thank You for Smoking” author Christopher Buckley, enchanted by a lead character obsessed with collecting frequent flyer miles who lives a single-serving lifestyle from airport to airport.

Today, unemployment rates are skyrocketing, tangible human connectivity is becoming a relic of another century, Reitman has settled down with a wife and daughter and futures all around are uncertain. But in some ways, there is hope, a sense of turning an all important corner. By the end of “Up in the Air,” that is just where Reitman has left his protagonist.

Meanwhile, Kirn’s novel has been transformed from an otherwise unremarkable example of corporate comedy into a piece at once deeply personal and serendipitously relevant. This is one of the year’s finest films.

George Clooney stars in perhaps the role of his career (one certainly drawing parallels to his own lifestyle) as Ryan Bingham, a career transition counselor who zips from hub to hub 270 days a year. In a nutshell, he is part of a third party firm hired out to corporations for the purposes of firing discontinued clientele. He lives a life of isolation, a stranger to his Midwest family, who sees him rarely and kills his commitment-less buzz anytime they call with an update.

He has airport check-in down to a science, stereotypically zeroing in on those who are quickest to follow behind at security, Moonwalking out of his shoes as he does so, his luggage immaculately packed, his system a work of streamlined art. When he isn’t letting people go in the name of other companies, he gives motivational addresses meant to steer attendees clear of the extra baggage in their life, their commitments, extraneous relationships, anything that keeps them from living a life as he believes it is meant to be lived: in motion.

Ryan is, for lack of a better cliche, an island unto himself.

This extravagantly absentee lifestyle is interrupted when Natalie (Anna Kendrick), a 23-year-old corporate-minded upstart, introduces a new technology to Ryan’s company that can allow the job to be done remotely, cutting down on travel costs, amping up the frequency and, essentially, rendering people like Ryan obsolete.

With Ryan objecting on the basis of unsubstantial delicacy with this lack of a personal touch, the film introduces its first paradox. While he may be perfectly content to fly about the country with little more than one-night-stands to show for personal connection, he understands the importance of looking people in the eye, in the flesh, when they are at one of their weakest, most insecure moments.

It is the beginning of a compelling arc that goes into deeply emotional territory before Ryan is set off on his newly enlightened course by film’s end, something like a phoenix risen from the ashes of a selfish, unfulfilled existence.

George Clooney sticks the landing with his performance in the most modest manner imaginable. There will be flashier performances this year, certainly more memorable ones. It isn’t the actor’s finest work to date and he will likely give better performances in the future, but it is doubtful he will ever have the opportunity to be this authentic and to stare character parallels such as these directly in the eye ever again.

Ryan is a man happy to be single, without children, a playboy of the sky. He was written with Clooney in mind and the actor deserves a glass raised high for tackling, however subtly, his own image in this way.

Anna Kendrick is wonderful as a naive firecracker vulnerable to the typical stings of youth: love lost, ambitious dreams, professional inexperience. As Alex, a love interest who brings out the most refined detail in Ryan’s characterization, Vera Farmiga hints at deep waters and complex emotions that live in her expressions, her steady gaze. The two in tandem make for an intriguing set of diverging paths for Ryan, the choice of his life path laid bare.

But the star of the production is Jason Reitman, who has crafted a screenplay both profound and entertaining, one with comedic rhythms that sing and emotional beats that resonate. That the effort is wrapped, on the surface, in a very timely tale that will hit the zeitgeist at just the right moment is testament to his patience with the project, one that has been nourished from a harmless romp, through a life accentuated by significant change, into a work of art.

I have no problems being forthcoming with the fact that this film hit me on a personal level. In my view, authoritative criticisms of films that don’t carry across an indication of personal impact are in some ways suspect. Everyone brings something different to the table.

Perhaps the film settled for me at the right time in my life, a crossroads of understanding the necessity to plunge into life, to grow up, to recognize the power of our relationships with people, etc. But as a friend reminded, everyone is at this crossroads, regardless of age.

“Up in the Air” speaks to this. It finds a universal rhythm and lives in that space, making for one of the most effective works of the year.

In.

Totally in.

In

What they said.

IN.

I want to know more first.
I haven't even seen a synopsis.
However I love both Reitman and Clooney, so I'm really looking forward to this.

From Jason Reitman, the Oscar® nominated director of “Juno,” comes a comedy called “Up in the Air” starring Oscar® winner George Clooney as Ryan Bingham, a corporate downsizing expert whose cherished life on the road is threatened just as he is on the cusp of reaching ten million frequent flyer miles and just after he’s met the frequent-traveler woman of his dreams (Vera Farmiga).

Anna Kendrick (of Rocket Science and Twilight) is the third major player. She portrays a young bureaucrat who believes Clooney's character's job--flying from city to city to let people go in person--isn't cost-effective and the firings should be completed via video conferencing instead. So she travels with him for a few days and he attempts to convince her the "personal touch" he provides is essential.

Jason Bateman and Danny R. McBride have small roles in the film, too.

First clip: http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount ... large.html

Another rave:

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/Wir ... 447&page=2

TELLURIDE, Colo. (Hollywood Reporter) - Cynicism and sentiment have melded magically in movies by some of the best American directors, from Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder to Alexander Payne.

Jason Reitman mined the same territory in "Thank You for Smoking" and his smash hit, "Juno," and it's pleasing to report that he's taken another rewarding journey down this prickly path in his eagerly awaited new film, "Up in the Air."

Boasting one of George Clooney's strongest performances, the film seems like a surefire awards contender, and the buzz will attract a sizable audience, even though some viewers might be startled by the uncompromising finale. The Paramount release arrives later this year.

Reitman embellishes Walter Kirn's acclaimed novel about a man who spends much of his life in the air, traveling around the country to fire people for executives too gutless to do the dirty job themselves. The character is just about as unsavory as the corporate pimp played by Jack Lemmon in Wilder's "The Apartment." When a character begins as such a sleazeball, you know there must be a moral transformation lurking somewhere in the last reel. That redemption never quite arrives for Clooney's Ryan Bingham, which is one of the things that makes "Air" so bracing.

Before the movie plunges into deeper waters, it seduces us with some of the most darkly hilarious moments to grace the screen in years. Clooney's crack comic timing makes the most of Ryan's acrid zingers as he savors a life without the vaguest threat of commitment. Trouble arises when his boss hires a young dynamo, Natalie (Anna Kendrick), who has the idea of cutting costs by instituting a program of firing people over the Internet instead of in person. Ryan sees his footloose lifestyle threatened, but he is forced to take Natalie on a cross-country odyssey to train her in the niceties of delivering bad news deftly. The interplay between the world-weary Ryan and the naive Natalie makes for delicious comedy, and Kendrick plays her role smoothly.

There's also a wonderful performance by Vera Farmiga as Alex, a dynamo who clicks with Ryan because she's also seeking no-strings sex on the run. ("Think of me as you with a vagina," Alex tells Ryan helpfully.)

Eventually, Ryan begins to question the assumptions that have ruled his life. His encounters with Alex and Natalie threaten his complacency. We can't help worrying that the film may take a sentimental turn, but miraculously, it never does. A scene in which Ryan returns home for a family wedding and talks a reluctant groom (well played by Danny McBride) into going through with the nuptials is a beautifully modulated sequence that manages to be poignant without ever falling into slop.

Reitman is a rare director with heart as well as sardonic humor, but he always knows when to pull back. There is only one false note -- a montage sequence near the end in which several of the people fired by Ryan burble about their love for their families -- that simply restates the obvious. But if this tiny gaffe reveals a touch of insecurity on Reitman's part, the rest of the film is perfectly controlled.

The entire cast is splendid. A couple of "Juno" alumni pop up: Jason Bateman is the smarmy boss who makes Ryan look humane, and J.K. Simmons has a single scene that proves just how much a master actor can convey in two or three minutes of screen time. The razor-sharp editing by Dana Glauberman gives the film a breezy momentum even while it's delivering piercing social insights. Holding everything together is Clooney, who bravely exposes the character's ruthlessness while also allowing us to believe in his too-late awakening to the possibilities he's missed. It's rare for a movie to be at once so biting and so moving. If Ryan's future seems bleak, there's something exhilarating about a movie made with such clear-eyed intelligence.

In.

Other categories I believe Up in the Air will feature in:

Best Director (Jason Reitman)
Best Adapted Screenplay (Reitman & Sheldon Turner, based on a novel by Walter Kirn)
Best Actor (George Clooney)
Best Supporting Actress (Anna Kendrick)
Best Editing

It may change, but right now, from the reviews I've read, I'm feeling Kendrick more than Farmiga. It seems Kendrick'll have the... spicier role.

Wow....
I mean,
WOWWW

I'm 97% sure this movie was designed specifically for me. Seriously, that teaser is probably the best thing I have ever seen in my life.
Okay, maybe not that, but this will not only win 11+ oscars but will probably be my favorite film of the year (and passing 500dos is quite something).
That's how good that teaser is.

And for you silly cynics, no, I'm not being sarcastic at all. I can't wait for this movie.

Out.

Fool!

oh, and in case you didn't pick it up from my reaction, I am very in.

Absolutely in, especially with 10 nominees.

Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly loved it:

Here are a few of the kinds of movies I wish that Hollywood made a lot more often (or maybe even two or three times a year): a romantic comedy that’s not just about situations but behavior, with two flawed and fascinating adults trying to figure out how to act around each other; a movie that connects to a large audience because it taps, in a rich and bold and immediate way, into the fears and anxieties of our time; a comedy in which the dialogue pings with wit and imagination and verve, yet without calling too much attention to itself (so that it doesn’t make your teeth hurt the way that Duplicity did); a movie that keeps surprising you because its characters keep surprising themselves.

The beauty of Up in the Air, the new film directed by Jason Reitman (Juno), is that it’s all those things at once. It’s also an indelibly personal movie. Adapted from a novel by Walter Kirn, Up in the Air nevertheless carries a pronounced link to Reitman’s first film, Thank You For Smoking (which premiered at Toronto in 2005), with its prankishly subversive tobacco-lobbyist hero. Only now Reitman is working with the polish of a master. In this new one, George Clooney plays a very similar kind of scoundrel, an executive efficiency expert whose entire job consists of jetting from one city to the next, planting himself in offices, and doing the dirty work of downsizing employees, telling each one, face to face, with a kind of eerie empathic dispassion, that they’re being let go, and that opportunities await, it’s really a beginning not an ending, here’s your severence packet, and blah blah blah. (He’s also a part-time motivational speaker, pepping up the very sorts of people he fires.)

This is not a job for anyone except a man who keeps his compassion firmly under control. Yet the most defining characteristic of Clooney’s Ryan Bingham is that he lives, quite literally, on the road, and loves it. He’s got a dozen passkeys to a dozen luxury VIP lounges, boutique rent-a-car deals, and high-end cookie-cutter hotels, and the fascination of the character is that since all of these corporate accomodations are essentially the same place, he really is at home in each one of them. He’s a pure product of the new America, an addict for an existence in which everything has become systematized. He’s also an addict for frequent-flyer miles, which he regards with an almost poetic, rather than just economic, aspiration (he’s out to collect a magically large number of them). Up in the air, or down on the ground, he’s quite happy being unattached to anyone or anything.

If anyone but George Clooney had played Ryan, we might not believe in (or like) him. But Clooney, with his cracklingly smart and debonair yet maybe slightly too polished surface, knows here, as he did in Michael Clayton, how to play a rogue who may be losing his soul but, in the eyes of the audience, holds on to it anyway. This is movie-star acting of the sort that no else today can bring off.

The “interviews” Ryan does with the folks he fires give you a chill. Reitman shuffles them, documentary-style, into montages of anger, confusion, righteousness, and naked terror, and I suspect that audiences will watch these sequences feeling as if the rug is being pulled out from under them (or could be). They’re a full-on vision of what’s going on in the country today, and Up in the Air is the rare movie that does justice to economic desperation by expressing it with an honest populist embrace. But even though Ryan is a messenger of doom, he’s no villain; no one in the movie is. Not even the fresh-faced corporate chipmunk (Anna Kendrick) who gets hired on at Ryan’s firm, and comes up with the “advanced” notion of doing away with their traveling-axman system, so that the firings, instead, can just take place over the Internet.

Suddenly, Ryan’s method looks positively benign, but since the airplane-happy Ryan also doesn’t want his lifestyle to end, he takes this naive young shill out on the road and shows her how downsizing with humanity is done. Kendrick is a fast-talking delight (she keeps showing you more layers), but there isn’t meant to be any romantic spark to their sparring. Ryan saves that for Alex, his sexy counterpart in corporate travel — and a role that, at long last, gives Vera Farmiga the chance to show off the sharp-eyed sensuality that makes her irresistable; she’s the homespun vixen next door. Clooney and Farmiga are fantastic together — Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell for the PowerPoint age. Up in the Air is light and dark, hilarious and tragic, bouncy and brainy, romantic and real. It’s everything that Hollywood has forgotten how to do, but we’re blessed that Jason Reitman has remembered it.

A rave from MTV:

Far closer in spirit and structure to his debut flick, "Thank You for Smoking," than "Juno," Jason Reitman's latest effort clearly is a step up in his increasingly exciting film career. Undeniably moving and heartfelt, "Up in the Air" is one of the year's best and a surefire awards contender for George Clooney, Reitman, and perhaps Vera Farmiga.

The film has been scorching through Toronto, leaving virtually everyone who's seen it gushing about it as the best thing since Billy Wilder helmed "The Apartment." Okay, maybe not THAT much gushing but close.

"The Apartment" comparison is actually a pretty apt one. There's a confidence and yes even grace to the filmmaking here that's altogether shocking to see in a big studio release. That being said, I'm here to temper your enthusiasm just a tad. Calm down, "Up in the Air" is a lot of things great. It's smart. It's wise about the world we're living in today. It's impeccably cast from the always engaging Vera Farmiga right down to JK Simmons in a fleeting but spot-on scene.

It's also not "Titanic" or "There Will be Blood." It might rock your world but it won't change the way movies are made. I only mention this because the hype is building so quickly for this one that you should know what you're getting into.

At the center of "Up in the Air" is a humdinger of a role for Clooney. In a bizarre way this feels a bit like Clooney's "The Wrestler." Ryan Bingham is an alterna-universe George. Smooth as silk. Funny, confident and seemingly content with his unique place in the universe. He's also, much like Clooney to this point in his life, foregone marriage and kids, and made no apologies for it. There's certainly a resonance to the performance knowing what we know of Clooney, the man. It's as fine a performance as he's given. Right alongside Michael Clayton.

Even a positive-with-reservations review at The AV Club says:



I think it's time to change the club a bit.

BTW, I'm your first member of said hypothetical club (If you so choose to change).

I'm game for an "Up in the Air will win Best Picture" club--I firmly believe it will--but I wasn't sure how many others would embrace it, especially with the Eastwood and Peter Jackson films still unseen. I'll mull it over.

In other news, Ebert wrote a blog entry with general thoughts on the movie and Reitman as a director. http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/09/tiff_5.html It's not a review, but you can tell from the general tone this will end up with at least *** and 1/2 from him.

All right, screw it. This is now a club for people who believe Up in the Air will WIN Best Picture. These reviews are stunning, the Academy loves Clooney, and the film sounds so vital and poignant.

I'll give members of the old club two days to stay or jump ship. If they don't choose either way, I'll just kick them out.

It's happening, people! Jump aboard!