Up in the Air movie storyline. From Jason Reitman, the Oscar-nominated director of Juno, comes Up in the Air, the timely odyssey of Ryan Bingham (Oscar winner George Clooney), a corporate downsizer and consummate modern business traveler who, after years of staying happily airborne, suddenly finds himself ready to make a real connection.
Ryan has long been contented with his unencumbered lifestyle lived out across America in airports, hotels and rental cars. He can carry all he needs in one wheel-away case; he’s a pampered, elite member of every travel loyalty program in existence; and he’s close to attaining his lifetime goal of 10 million frequent flier miles – and yet… Ryan has nothing real to hold onto.
When he falls for a simpatico fellow traveler (Vera Farmiga), Ryan’s boss (Jason Bateman), inspired by a young, upstart efficiency expert (Anna Kendrick), threatens to permanently call him in from the road. Faced with the prospect, at once terrifying and exhilarating, of being grounded, Ryan begins to contemplate what it might actually mean to have a home.
Up in the Air is a 2009 American comedy-drama film directed by Jason Reitman and written by Reitman and Sheldon Turner, based on the 2001 novel of the same name, written by Walter Kirn. The story is centered on corporate “downsizer” Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) and his travels. Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick and Danny McBride also star. Filming was primarily in St. Louis, Missouri, which substituted for a number of other cities. Several scenes were filmed in Detroit, Omaha, Las Vegas and Miami.
Reitman promoted Up in the Air with personal appearances at film festivals and other showings, starting with the Telluride Film Festival on September 5, 2009. The Los Angeles premiere was at the Mann Village Theater on November 30, 2009. Paramount scheduled a limited North American release on December 4, 2009, broadening the release on December 11, 2009, with a wide release on December 23, 2009.
Take Off
In his first two feature films, Jason Reitman established a distinctive talent for taking provocative anti-heroes – a tobacco lobbyist in Thank You for Smoking and a pregnant teenager in the Oscarwinning Juno – and telling deeply human, funny and appealing stories in which these tricky characters defy expectations. He continues in this vein with the well-timed tale of Ryan Bingham, who, on the surface has a rather disagreeable job: he fires people when corporations downsize.
And yet, Ryan’s story is also about a man who is instantly, poignantly recognizable – a charming, decent man who has enthusiastically embraced our world of speed, technology, comfort, individual ambition and material perks; a man who leads a smooth, enjoyable life; a man who has it all and yet, finds something vital is missing. His tale raises intriguing questions: in an age of global travel and machine-mediated conversations, how do we get to the real, lasting connections that once sustained American communities? And what happens when we avoid them?
Those questions lie at the heart of the screenplay for Up in theAir which, after an earlier draft by Sheldon Turner, Reitman took in a new direction tapping into how Ryan Bingham’s story reflects how we live now, in an intersecting moment of technological advances and communication breakdowns.
“I saw it as a story about a guy who has to deal with the fact that, even though he thinks his life is complete, he’s been ignoring something very important, which is the responsibility to be part of something larger,” says Reitman. “Ryan Bingham is so scared off by the burdens of joining a community that he’s been missing out on the value of that.”
He continues: “It’s something I think we’re exploring as a society right now. We’re all using our cell phones and twittering and texting and it seems as if we are more connected than ever – while, in reality, people don’t look each other in the eye much anymore, and we have fewer real relationships. Ryan’s life in airports is a metaphor for that. You can go into an airport anywhere in the world and instantly know where everything is; they have the same shops, the same restaurants, the same newspapers. We’re comfortable everywhere, yet nowhere really seems to be home. We’re so global that we’ve lost that sense of local community.”
Reitman’s inspiration for Up in the Air began with the novel by Walter Kirn, which Reitman used as a jumping off point for a screenplay that evolved into its own journey. “The book spoke to me on multiple levels,” says Reitman. “I love Walter’s language which I used a lot. But as I was writing, my own life changed. I met my wife, fell in love and had a child. And in that process, Ryan Bingham also started to mature and look for more in life. The script grew into being about how imperative connections are in our daily lives.”
Kirn recalls that his novel’s subject matter originally arose out of a chance encounter. He was flying to Los Angeles, when he asked the man in the seat next to him where he was from. “He said, `Oh, I’m from right here; right from this seat, in fact.’ When I asked what he meant by that he told me he used to have an apartment but, because he was on the road 300 days a year, he traded it for a storage locker and called extended-stay hotels home. I pressed him, he said, `You know, there are plenty of me around.’ I realized as I talked to him that he had adapted to a global landscape that’s entirely composed of airports, hotels, chain restaurants, gift shops and magazine racks. But I also realized how lonely he must feel.”
Thus was born Kirn’s central character, Ryan Bingham, who has managed to reach his mid forties without forming any true personal attachments other than to his elite travel programs – and who spends his days quite literally “letting people go.”
“I gave Ryan the job of taking away other people’s jobs,” explains Kirn. “He is like a masseur who comes in and sort of rubs your shoulders while rolling your desk chair into the elevator. Terminating employees has become an art and a legally perilous situation, and Ryan has mastered that.”
Bingham emerged as a keenly current twist on the classic American salesman, selling dreams to those devastated by the sudden, impersonal loss of their careers, as he crisscrosses the nation. “Instead of going door to door, Ryan goes from hub to hub,” says the writer / director. “And yet there is something very emotional in the idea of a man who in mid-life has no real permanent address.”
Kirn was thrilled when he learned that Reitman wanted to direct the film. “Thank You for Smoking was so unconventional in its attitude, it caused me to immediately trust him as a kind of co-conspirator,” says Kirn. “And when I received the script, I felt that Jason had added a fourth dimension to it for the screen. I bowed my head in gratitude for the fact that it had been done so well and by a person with skills that I simply don’t have.”
Reitman went beyond simply translating the book to the screen. He took Kirn’s main character and forged a set of wholly original dramatic circumstances around him – and he crafted two characters who shatter Ryan Bingham’s well-constructed cocoon of individuality. These are: Natalie (Anna Kendrick), a gung-ho if naïve, 20-something efficiency expert whom he is forced to take under his wing even as she threatens his lifestyle; and Alex (Vera Farmiga), the woman who seems to be his business travel soul-mate, sparking his first-ever desire for more than just a fleeting link to another human being.
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Up in the Air (2009)
Directed by: Jason Reitman
Starring: George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick, Jason Bateman, Amy Morton, Melanie Lynskey, Zach Galifianakis, Lucas MacFadden, Adrienne Lamping, Chris Lowell, Tamala Jones
Screenplay by: Jason Reitman
Production Design by: Steve Saklad
Cinematography by: Eric Steelberg
Film Editing by: Dana E. Glauberman
Costume Design by: Linda Lee Sutton
Music by: Rolfe Kent
MPAA Rating: R for language, some sexual content.
Distributed by: Paramount Pictures
Release Date: December 4, 2009
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