Review: Up In The Air

brent johnson looks at the year’s most topical Oscar contender …

So, I’ve been sitting here the last few minutes wracking my brain over what to write about Up In The Air. It’s not that there’s nothing to write. There’s plenty:

-George Clooney is excellent. It would be amazing if Oscar honored him for this role, because Oscar is often in love with showiness. And this role is not showy. Get lost in his subtleness. His fear. His discovery of intimacy.

-Anna Kendrick is excellent. All prickly business and pent-up emotion. She’s a spitfire. And she could easily become this year’s Best Supporting Actress.

-Vera Farmiga is excellent. She has smarm here that happens to be sexy. That’s tough to pull off. Hell, she could be this year’s Best Supporting Actress. (Unlike Best Supporting Actor this year, which is rife with candidates, its female counterpart category is relatively thin this year.)

-The film is excellent. It’s small but not tiny. And it’s timely — a amovie about love, commitment and downsizing at a time when the economy is ravaging our minds and wallets.

But it’s a difficult film to write about. There are a ton of tiny but exciting components. It’s a film you simply need to see.

The one thing that is at the forefront of my mind when I think about this movie? It proves its director, Jason Reitman — son of Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman — is a major new talent in the film industry. His first major feature, Thank You For Smoking, was fun, stylized satire. His second major feature, Juno, was fun, stylized quirk.

And Up In The Air is smart and incredibly well-made. The acting is tight, the shots are tight, the concept is tight.

I also happened to see Avatar shortly after seeing this. It’s a nice contrast. I unexpectedly enjoyed James Cameron’s digital epic. It was surprisingly human, especially since the 3-D didn’t add much.

But nothing beats a smart, tight drama disguised as a comedy. That’s what life is.