Up in the Air (2009)

The sibling is currently in town, and gave me the news that she had already watched Depp’s latest starrer – Alice in Wonderland. A look of dismay later, I zeroed down on the alternative, also based on a book.

The tickets were booked, the weather was hot, and the two of us set off with the pact that I wouldn’t buy her food or drinks. Don’t ask why.



Set in the land of frequent-flyers, Clooney and Farmiga play their characters Ryan and Alex so well that you forget that they are not for real. Their banter is witty and lively, and the chemistry is evident.

However, things are not meant to be. He realizes that her reality is far removed from his own, and falls silent when she tells him over a phone-call in a matter-of-fact way that she was a grown up, and would meet him again if he wanted to. The conversation also included this bit.

Ryan Bingham: I thought I was a part of your life.

Alex Goran: I thought we signed up for the same thing... I thought our relationship was perfectly clear. You are an escape. You're a break from our normal lives. You're a parenthesis.

Ryan Bingham: I'm a parenthesis?

There is also the character called Natalie (played by Anna Kendrick). She is from Cornell, has bright ideas on how the business of telling people that they have lost their jobs should be run, works with Ryan, gets a chance to execute her ideas, receives a dose of reality in the process, follows a boy and gets dumped by text, and moves on.

Like Alex, she gives Ryan a dose of reality too.

The movie is worth watching, more than once.