4: UP IN THE AIR

One of the most honourable achievements of Jason Reitman as a filmmaker is that he is utterly unconcerned with marking his film with an identifiable style. Unlike the Finchers and Scorseses of the world, Reitman merely adopts a style that suits the story he is telling. Thusly, Juno was far more stylised with animation and wild colour schemes. Up in the Air is the least showy of Reitman's work to date, it is also his best arguably providing a mature, blackly comic look at the modern world. While it definitely shares a lot of the same characteristics as Reitman's debut, Thank You for Smoking, the film has a far more interesting concept and ultimately a more relevant one.

Up in the Air arrived in cinemas as the world licked its economic wounds following the worst recession in decades. The film framed itself within this uncomfortably recognisable world as thousands of people finally were forced out from under the blanket of comfort their jobs or careers had offered them for an age. Reitman peppers the film with imagery to this effect but his primary concern is what is said rather than what is seen. George Clooney's Ryan Bingham sits atop the actor's finest work playing a role that acknowledges Clooney’s undeniable charisma and his rather self-imposed bachelorhood but turning it on its head. His charisma is instead a tool to calm those whom he has to tell their world as they know it is about to change. The film settles interestingly into a sub-genre populated by the likes of Taxi Drier and Leon, one of the series referred to as 'God's Lonely Men'. Clooney's Ryan Bingham is more a corporate lonely man but he still fits the convention of someone almost incapable of communicating with the world beyond his own bubble.

That might sound a tad overzealous but as Reitman peppers in interviews of people who really were fired by their companies you realise it really can be that sombre. Bingham’s bachelorhood is framed as a deliberate attempt to distance himself from those around him, only ever at peace when in the air and cut off from the world. He probably should have won the oscar but such a self conscious and supposedly fluffy piece was never in these dark times going to be acknowledged. Which is ridiculous because the film is entirely concerned with the melancholy of the working stiff. Even Bingham, whose job is always essential as long as people need to be let go, is threatened with the arrival of a technology that will essentially make his travelling redundant.

Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick, his co-stars, are really the only actors who share anything of the story besides Clooney and they do the job impeccably earning their respective oscar nominations. Farmiga, formerly best known for her rather bland girlfriend role in The Departed, is given a phenomenal role as essentially the female equivalent of Clooney. An equally cold, heartless and self involved being. Her arc is the most muddied in the story, her motivations hidden beneath a cool, sarcastic wit, yet when the truth of her character is revealed finally it is utterly devastating for both audience and Clooney alike. Her follow-up phone call furthermore alienates us as Reitman has been cleverly setting up conventions with the two characters and building towards a different ending. Kendrick is a revelation though, becoming the first Twilight veteran to shatter the image that the aforementioned franchise had already created for her. Her career driven character is the conscience of the movie and without her Clooney would never have the same impact in the movie.

Reitman stands in a fairly uncrowded field as a filmmaker who makes adult comedy-dramas. Alongside Alexander Payne he never compromises for the sake of what is supposedly commercial - credit where credit is due he does not cop out for the feel-good ending the film he made generally warrants. A film by him guarantees a level of class that is rarely afforded in the current system. Neither overly glossy nor deliberately independently edgy, instead reminding us of an era when films were dependent upon a simple factor. The script. Despite all the class that comes with Up in the Air none of it would exist without Reitman's words and you would be remiss to not use the phrase 'They don't make them like this anymore'. Simply put it is the best of Wilder, Crowe, Ashby and Hawks. A film about adults for adults.

Treasure it.