Up in the Air
DVD, 109 minutes
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My friend Deb doesn’t generally give me advice on diet aids, but she does recommend movies. When she, a road warrior herself, recommended the recent George Clooney movie Up in the AIr I had to see it. My husband and I rented it a week or two ago, and watched it together.

The story itself, that of a man who lives his live in the space between plane flights, who begins to question his existence only after corporate changes force him to settle in one place, and after a relationship with a woman who lives an (apparently) similar life. It’s also about his ersatz mentorship of a younger employee at his firm, the woman who instigates the change in his life. The casting, as the director plainly stated in the featurette, was a bid to make the lead character, a corporate hatchet man, still be likeable.

Clooney was a subdued version of himself in this film, but the downplaying worked, and he was, indeed, likeable. Female fans should not miss the special features, which include a deleted scene in which we see him scrubbing a toilet (Deb and I agree: it was worth the rental fee just for that.), and Anna Kendrick (of CAMP among other things) was fragile and tough at the same time as the protege. The female road warrior/lover, played by Vera Farmiga was beautiful and compelling, and Jason Bateman’s few scenes as Clooney’s boss were all immensely watchable.

Up in the Air works because of it’s subtlety and poignance, and I’d recommended it to most women, and some men.