On New Year’s Eve the S.O. and I went to see “Up in the Air.” I liked the movie a lot-here’s why.
First of all, I like movies that tell several stories at once-Up in the Air does that.
Second-it does more than tell a story, it provides an analogy of the current American experience-namely the real pain and suffering being felt by a large segment of the population, while a an elite group remains immune from its effects and continues to live in “airworld”-the life of luxury you see advertised in any airline magazine of Skymall catalog.
Finally, the character George Clooney portrays -albeit a send up of folks in macro-is one I can identify with. The guy who likes to travel ( which I do), hates doing meetings by video conference ( if I could un-invent the VTC, I would), and is not quite cut out for the whole homebody existence. (Dial three-we have a winner. That’s me.).
Plus I think there is a great story in the back story-namely the idea of companies so “ballless” that they don’t have the gumption to fire their own employees-and then that some schmuck who profits off of their misery, thinks it is a good idea to do it via teleconference. That one idea alone, is a mighty parable for what is wrong with corporate America today.
Add to all that- the movie is well acted, and the young new employee full of great ideas gets put in her place, its worth watching for the reason of observing the interplay between the characters alone.
Go see the movie-it works on a lot of levels.