Up in the Air 2009

There's two movies going on in here. The movie hooks you with its efficiency vs effectivity debate as personified by the characters played by Clooney en Kendrick. Clooney's character is really well defined and interesting, while Kendrick's a little more one-note and annoying, so that doesn't make for the most compelling drama. As the movie goes along, this plot falls by the wayside and it sets up an arc about Clooney's character needing to settle down in life. The way that that's presented to the viewer feels a little backwards, watching it now it feels like Clooney's take on relationships has become more accepted by society, but the movie insists that it's immature and a character flaw. Eventually it turns Clooney's views on relationships against himself, which leads to some interesting drama but you don't entirely buy he'd care this much about his life being empty. The resolution with Anna Kendrick's character is even less satisfying, it feels like it hits the reset button on a lot of the progress that was made before that and it goes with an ending that doesn't say much about anything. It's just not a great story, however there's definitely stuff to like here. The snappy editing, solid cinematography and witty dialogue make this an easy watch, it's a major directorial improvement compared to Juno. Clooney, who could play this type of role in his sleep, is great. Vera Farmiga has a great screen presence. These elements are just not enough for me to elevate it to something I'd recommend.

4.5/10

I consider this one of the best movies of 2009, and its high up my list of best movies of the decade. It seems this movie came at a perfect time when all over the world but the United States especially people were getting laid off and tens of thousands of people had to look for a new job.

George Clooney plays the man who doesn't want to settle down and he found the perfect job to do it. He flies around America to fire people. While other people just wanna go as fast as possible from point a to b and see the airport as necessarily annoyance he enjoys every second of it. He has a lifestyle that sounds very appealing to me, no complicated relations, job or stuff that holds you down. Just go everywhere you want without thinking about what you leave behind.

Interesting fact: The director Jason Reitman put up an ad in a newspaper asking for anyone who recently got fired to speak about that experience. He told them it was for a documentary. So some of the people we see in the movie are people who actually got fired from their jobs and give a genuine answer to what they said when they were told they were getting fired and what they think is still important in their life.