When I walked out of the viewing, I told my compatriots that it seemed a bit too light. American Beauty, ’99, is one of my favorite best pictures of all time; it certainly can’t be qualified as light. It has always been, since it’s release, one of the movies that I measure all others against.
One of the first movies that I watched during my quest was It Happened One Night, ’34, which is a joyous romp where the seeds of love are planted on a Miami to New York City Bus trip. It is simply a delightful movie, which never gets too serious or dark.
As I thought about Up In the Air, I began to think about the difference between American Beauty and It Happened One Night, two of my favorite films of all time. I loved both these films the same, but they are on opposite ends of the emotional spectrum to be sure.
I believe that the film that wins should be a prism through which to view that time period in America. The winner should illuminate something about society, be it the fact that the public is looking for a certain film at the time or that the film specifically says something about the time period. I also believe that the tone that the film leaves you with is the tone the voters think that the American people should heed.
Initially, I viewed Up in the Air’s lightness as a drawback. But viewing it through the prism of many best pictures past, I see its lightness as a positive, something the filmmaker thought we needed while dealing with the subject matter, and also in this day and age.
If Up in the Air were to win, it’d be the second film to win best picture this decade that I’d consider light, the other being Chicago, ’02. Lightness and escapism was something we needed after the events of 9/11, and Chicago was a joyous harkening back to the flapper-era Windy City.
In the prior three prior decades, only one film each decade took home best picture that I’d consider light; Annie Hall, ’77, Driving Miss Daisy, ’89 (some may not consider this light) and Shakespeare in Love ’98. If Up in the Air were to win, I think it’d be bucking a historical trend, making it the second light film to win this decade.
To be sure, the film takes on a few very pressing current events issues. It deals with these issues deftly, but retains a lightness that halos all of the main characters from anything horrible happening particularly to them.
George Clooney is Ryan Bingham, a career transition counselor. That is a fancy way of saying that he is hired by companies to tell people that they’ve lost their jobs. Bingham flies all over the country to do this work, and appears to be thought of as the best at his job. Anna Kendrick is Natalie Keener, a hotshot new employee just out of college who is trying to revolutionize the company by doing these firings via web cam.
The first major situation the film deals with Bingham’s job in general. Of course, it is timely because our economy is in the tank. Bingham does his job well, but also he is the kind of person that has a hard time having close relationships, perhaps to some degree, this relates to his career. He does strike up a relationship during the film, but not with his plucky, upstart co-worker, but with Vera Farmiga as Alex Goran, a fellow frequent flier. She challenges his beliefs that everything you need in life should be able to fit in a backpack.
The second major issue is the prevalence of new technology and its impersonal nature. This is the main conflict in the film, as Bingham tries to defend his way of life, while Keener tries to usher in a new era. As all communication becomes more impersonal, as phone calls give way to text messages, this movie takes a daring stand against impersonal communication becoming the norm.
Due to the fact that the film is dealing with these very real and important issues, I expected that it would have tone similar to American Beauty or Crash, ’05 (one of the worst Best Pictures ever), instead, Director and Co-Writer, Jason Rietman retains the tone of his first picture, Thank You for Smoking, ’06, and to a smaller tone, his second film, Juno, ’07.
This is a good thing, people want light right now, some need it. They want to watch characters that they care about, and there are enough bad things going on in the world, they want to see those characters be sympathetic and empathetic. Up in the Air strikes the perfect tone for this day in age, more than any of the other movies that I’ve seen. It is a film for now, 2009, and that is why, five films in, it is my pick for Best Picture.
I see a lot of Old Hollywood in Up in the Air. It doesn’t rely at all on special effects, and instead is a carefully crafted story about love, loss and the inevitability of change (in careers, in people, in life). More than any of the other nominees I’ve seen so far (and The Blind Side, ’09), this film has heart, it is classic and when someone undertakes the same quest that I took 50 years from now, I think they’ll see the same thing.
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