REVIEW: Clooney Shines ‘Up in the Air’

All your life, you’ve heard about the American Dream: find a wife or husband, pop out some kids, buy a house with a white picket fence and live happily ever after in the cozy embrace of suburbia.

But what if that cozy embrace wasn’t there anymore? Take a look around you at the news and official statistics, and it’s clear that America and its attendant “Dream” is in a heap of trouble. What if you did all that hard work, only to see it swept away by a devastating layoff? How would you handle it?

In his new film “Up in the Air,” George Clooney delivers perhaps the most well-rounded performance of his career while finding rays of hope and humor in the economic darkness of our present times. As Ryan Bingham, a corporate downsizing specialist, he flies around the country helping administer mass layoffs for companies too scared to handle such situations themselves.

Ryan has the patter of a concerned friend down to a T, calmly guiding people through the devastating moments of hearing they’ve lost their job by discussing their severance packages, giving them a pep talk and then providing them their final proverbial shove out the door with a kind smile and perhaps a pat on the back thrown in for effect. But his own personal life is nearly bereft of such touches, or connections of any kind – he’s on the fly over 300 days a year and wishes he could make it 365. If a woman’s around to seduce from time to time, Ryan will engage in some fun but meaningless sport sex and move on. (more…)