Why I'm not a Fan of Up in the Air

"Did I make you feel cheap?" Alex (Vera Farmiga) asks Ryan Bingham as she leaves him alone in his hotel bed after a night of escapades in Up in the Air. "Yeah, leave the money on the dresser," he says. This exchange is what I remember about the film days after seeing it for the first time. It recalls the lighthearted, intelligent banter between Clooney and Farmiga that makes the film go down so smoothly as you watch. But it also reminds me that there's something cheap to Up in the Air's message, as if it's cashing in on a moment of economic weakness.

By now, you know that Up in the Air is about a man who fires people for a living. Ryan Bingham tells us in a series of voiceovers that he loves the air and hates attachments. But then he meets a woman who invites him to "think of me like yourself, except with a vagina." Alex and Ryan embark on a series of dalliances, meeting up in airport hotels across the country. Meanwhile, Ryan must bring one of his newest co-workers with him to show her the ropes. Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick) is an earnest college graduate who constantly badgers him about what his deal with Alex is. The deal turns out to be quite predictable. Through a series of well-written, well-acted events, we eventually get the message that connections and people are the things that we hold on to, whether or not we're employed.

This would be all fine and good if it weren't for the fact that Up in the Air seems like an attempt to placate an underemployed audience in the laziest way possible. In one scene where Clooney is firing someone, he tells him to see it as an opportunity to follow his dreams and become a hero to his kids, instead of wiling away at his lame desk job. What Clooney says has a ring of truth to it, but it also looks like he is merely pandering to the laid-off employee. Throughout the movie, I couldn't help wondering if the makers of Up in the Air were mirroring this technique by telling audiences something they want to hear. Are they condescending to tell us that in this world, human connections are all that ultimately matter?

Like many of Clooney's firees, I was also suspicious of the messenger. Ryan Bingham is not an empathetic figure. Nor is anyone else in Up in the Air. Keener is extremely annoying, and faux-feminist. Alex is almost too witty and feminist, until you learn that she's not. Up in the Air may have captured our attention this past awards season, but will certainly fade from memory the second the country grows strong enough not to see past Clooney's soothing voice.