George Clooney (10 page)

Although Ryan denies his connections to other people, he does have them, and it is through Alex that his backstory, so to speak, is teased out. He shows her his old school, with photos of himself as a college athlete (with real shots of the young Clooney) and iconic spots around the school site. Ryan has developed to the point where he can reveal these connections, thereby making himself vulnerable, and the smile that he and Alex exchange at the basketball practice might suggest that they are on the way to forming a more permanent relationship. Clooney's improvised calling “I'm lonely” after Alex leaves him underlines the fragility of his emotional state. Inexperienced in involved relationships, he leaps straight to the nesting stage, buying and furnishing an apartment in Omaha in an elaborate sequence, ultimately cut from the finished film, only for Alex to fail to show up, prompting his uninvited appearance at her house.

The opening of the film underlines the heartlessness of Western capitalism in Ryan's delivering of unwelcome news. If viewers are affected by Clooney's charm, the pill is sweetened but his character remains fairly dark. He makes promises he knows he will not keep, stating to fired employee Steve (Zach Galifianakis) “This is just the beginning,” knowing full well he will never see him again. Ryan is avoiding responsibility, most obviously in his family and personal life but also professionally. He flies in, delivers devastating news, and flies out again. When the possibility arises that an employee has committed suicide, he is brutally dismissive of following up on what people do after being laid off (“No good can come of that”). The appearance of Natalie and Alex force him to start to take some responsibility, to edge out into the world of risk taking, and although he is still living a nomadic lifestyle at the end, he has been
shaken out of his comfort zone. Reflected in the question that he mishears (“Would you like the can, sir?”), his inescapable mortality lies just beneath his pampered existence.

There are cinematic precursors to such a role. In
Pretty Woman
(Garry Marshall, 1990), Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) flies around the United States buying up companies and breaking them up to be resold at a greater profit. Both films, although part romantic comedy, have at their core a good-looking hero delivering unpalatable news about the fate of companies and individuals at the hands of a ruthless economic market. Like Ryan, Edward also is avoiding commitment by a life of wealth and privilege, which is challenged when he meets a woman (Vivian, played by Julia Roberts) who makes him reappraise his views. Like Clooney, Gere is an actor whose performances have been criticized as being based on facial twitches and good looks alone (also subject to sporadic gossip about his sexuality) and who inspires fierce loyalty and dislike in equal measure.

We hear only the opening rhetoric of Ryan's backpack speech. It seems like an inversion of E. M. Forster's mantra, “Only connect,” but without explaining how. Away from the gradually increasing scale and glamor of the lighting and stylized shots of Ryan's conference speeches, the blunt truth of his philosophy is less beguiling. He explains to his older sister, Kara (Amy Morton), that “I tell people how to avoid commitment,” prompting a bemused reaction: “What kind of fucked-up message is that?” When Natalie confronts Ryan, while taking one of the photos for his sister, she describes him as a 12-year-old, and there is arguably something emotionally retarded about a man in his 40s who has never made a home for himself.

There are new aspects to Clooney's persona on display here. We see Clooney dancing, smiling, and joining in the lyrics of a rap performance (without the substance abuse needed by his character in
The Men Who Stare at Goats
). For some, the juxtaposition of an older couple (he and Alex) in among a group in their 20s might jar a little but their presence could also be seen as empowering. Rather than trying to be something they are not, Alex and Ryan are a mature couple, unwilling to give up youthful fun. They drop in and out of the hotel group, crashing the party in the hotel and on the boat but not participating in the karaoke. Like the character of Bob (Bill Murray) in
Lost in Translation
, a middle-aged man is shaken out of his routines, in part by partying with a crowd of people a generation younger than himself. Murray communicates a clearer sense of real joy (exacting a promise of a tape of some new music), but Clooney's character here is neither being laughed at as out of place nor adopting a position of patronizing superiority. In both films, the
embracing of human contact is seen as a healthy development for an individual who leads an isolated life of global travel. Also, by choosing to use MC Young playing himself as a rapper, with his best known 1989 hit “Bust a Move,” the position of Alex and Ryan are in a sense strengthened, as they are familiar with the song, an old-school classic (and can sing along).

What perhaps is most noticeable is the mature range in Clooney's performance here. He can be the smiling, charming cad with Alex but also the brooding, empty face of loss, like on the subway, trying to understand what kind of a relationship he has or can ever have with her. His expectation of praise (in producing the photos for his sister or offering to walk her down the aisle) is converted in a moment into a suppressed sense of loss and disappointment. Natalie is the more obviously emotional character, with her feelings barely kept in check, but Clooney's character has a more nuanced depth, which is often dismissed simply as charm. In scenes where he is alone on-screen, there is no need for such performance for a third party, and here he brings the somber and almost elegiac tone of
Solaris
(Steven Soderbergh, 2003) and
Michael Clayton
(Tony Gilroy, 2007).

It is a film that deals with overtly philosophical issues, particularly around the need for and value of human connectivity. As Jim (Danny McBride) bluntly expresses it, when having last-minute doubts about marrying Ryan's younger sister, Julie (Melanie Lynskey), “What is the point?” Reitman raises the notion of what is worth keeping in life, to what values and people should we be paying most attention. Linked to this is the notion of loyalty: most obviously in Ryan's card, showing loyalty to a particular airline (as the airport posters remind us), but Ryan is forced to evaluate to whom or what should he be loyal. Surrounded by people in his working environment, Ryan is essentially alone, living out his backpack theory as well as selling it as a motivational speaker. However, like Miles Massey's planned lecture on divorce in
Intolerable Cruelty
, the hero's speaking engagement becomes impossible when the life of the speaker shows the flaws in the central idea.

Natalie's use of the blend “Glocal” reflects the film's tension between the macro and micro, between the big and small scale. Ryan's job of laying people off ultimately leads to his own status as dispensable, and his dismissal of marriage as a concept contributes to Jim's doubts; but then he must, in the style of a debate, argue against his own position in order to understand a contrary point of view (foreshadowed by Natalie's attempt to sell Ryan the idea of marriage on the shuttle). The sacking of Bob, which Ryan takes over as Natalie's strategy falters, includes lines
about the process being a “wake-up call” and a “rebirth,” which also reflect his own development. He is forced to rethink his whole view of human nature and whether indeed we are like sharks (isolated, predatory, and essentially nomadic) or better suited by nature to the monogamous bonds represented by swans.

The breakdown of Natalie's relationship and her subsequent outbreak of hysterics in an airport hotel lobby may seem a little out of place with the emotional tone of the film, but her brutal dumping by text reflects an emotional version of the work that she and Ryan are engaged in. However, she seems just a little too easily damaged for a 23-year-old here. The subsequent exchange between the three about expectations and coupledom includes some interesting and funny lines; but again, Natalie, expecting a child and a partner with a Grand Cherokee, sounds like someone much younger than her age might suggest. It feels as if the script almost wants to identify her as a teen, a clear generation apart from Alex and Ryan, at home with new technology, having a psychology degree, and full of naïve hopes about romance and marriage (“I followed a boy”). Natalie's catalog of romantic hopes and dreams is juxtaposed with Alex's briefer and more realistic checklist. Although not intended to destroy Natalie's worldview, Natalie's reaction is comic as she is not ready to give up on her dreams too quickly (“Wow, that was depressing”).

However, the film, via the reaction of Alex and Ryan, does not judge her harshly. In fact, the very opposite is true, as they take a parental and protective view of her. This makes Alex more likeable to audiences, who otherwise might have seen the two women as rivals, so that the advice Alex passes on to Natalie seems heartfelt rather than world-weary and cynical. Likewise, Ryan takes Natalie literally under his wing, giving her a hug in the middle of the lobby, supporting her in the journey to try out her new software, and even arguing on her behalf with his boss that she should be allowed to continue when a sacking by video conference turns messy, and giving her a supportive reference, helping her to get a new job.

Although we have a protagonist who lives in or around anonymous airports, who leads a life of little emotional connection, broken only by casual sex, this is not the world of J. G. Ballard. The film has a much warmer heartbeat. As Ryan eventually declares, “Life's better with company.” The posed pictures that Ryan takes with the
Amelie
-style cutout (a request for Ryan to pick up some salmon in the novel) seem kitschy, but the truth is, although Ryan can afford to travel to exotic places, he goes no nearer to them than his sister does. Indeed, at times the film feels close to a Wes Anderson movie, particularly in the wedding section,
where we are encouraged to laugh with, rather than at, the unpretentiousness of small-town weddings. Like Anderson, Reitman likes to work with particular actors in supporting roles (like Ryan's boss, Craig, played by Jason Bateman) and key technical roles, like the use of design company Shadowplay for the opening credits. There is a similar inclusion of the quirky and small scale, the notion of a surrogate family, and most obviously, perhaps, the work of musical supervisor Randall Poster. Like Anderson, Reitman writes and directs and builds up a store of preferred music while he writes. There even feels like a small nod to Max in
Rushmore
(1998) in Jim sitting on a tiny chair, both representing individuals struggling to accept grown-up responsibilities. However, Clooney, who worked with Anderson on
Fantastic Mr. Fox
the same year as
Up in the Air
was released, is given more leeway to improvise by Reitman, such as the flirtatious scene with Alex about their attempts to join the Mile High Club.

Very few shots draw attention to themselves as self-conscious art. Technology and artistry are largely subordinated to the needs of the story. As Ryan's life starts to come under more pressure, extras in the background were given instructions to move around more and dressed a little less smartly. Shots of chairs all piled together or rooms empty but for dozens of phones on the floor provide powerful images of an economy in decline, and time and energy are devoted to providing fake snow for the school scenes or Ryan's appearance at Alex's house, just to keep the sense of seasonal continuity. The extremely complicated but unobtrusive matching of eye lines in the scene between Natalie, Ryan, and Craig, where they play out fictional firing scenarios, creates a vibrant and dramatic scene and conveys the balance of power shifting from Natalie back to Ryan, who then ultimately scores a hollow victory by humiliating her.

The film dramatizes how unattainable the American Dream is for millions who may be laid off through no fault of their own, what priorities individuals set for themselves, and how they decide that they are a success. By the close of the film, Ryan has achieved his aim of a specific number of air miles, has gained an exclusive card (only the seventh person to do so), and gets to meet the iconic pilot, Maynard Finch (Sam Elliott), whose mustachioed face we have seen on airport posters. Now however, Ryan literally has nothing to say as he realizes the insubstantial nature of that dream. When the captain expresses wonder at how he has found the time to do this, the waste of Ryan's life spent denying the kind of human connections that he now comes to understand is driven home. However, Reitman refuses easy sentiment. Ryan arrives too late in the lives of his family to be welcomed unquestioningly with open arms. He
cannot suddenly take the role of father of the bride, and his pictures occupy only one of many on the board. In his absence, his family has made other connections.

Reitman also refuses the easy ending of some kind of bond with one of the female leads, which might have made Clooney's character less problematic to mainstream audiences but would have required a distortion of what we have learned about Alex and Natalie up to this point. This even extends to Ryan himself, after Alex describes him as merely “a parenthesis.” Her character has not fundamentally changed: she is still a strong, independent individual, using sex as a form of escapism, very much in the way historically men might have done. However, Ryan's character has changed and such a compartmentalized life is no longer enough for him. The film explores the importance of a sense of home and belonging, and Ryan symbolically lets go of his luggage in slow motion; but in his weary close-up, looking up at the destination board, there is little sense he really knows where he is headed. As the title suggests, he is still literally up in the air, in a state of limbo. He is still a global citizen, and as his backpack philosophy states, all he can do is keep moving.

Reitman delivers a witty script that carries its subtext lightly (Kirn himself appears as a cameo next to Clooney in the meeting scene), at the same time giving Clooney the space and time to deliver one of his strongest acting performances. There is a blend of Clooney's physical charms (we see his torso twice: first in the first seduction scene, using his concierge key, and later after the conference party), his self-deprecating wit (his sudden look in a mirror behind him on hearing Natalie describe him as old would not be out of place in his commercials), and a more cynical world-weariness (in the setup gag to Natalie in which he describes the “moment when you look into somebody's eyes and you can feel them staring into your soul and the whole world goes quiet just for a second?” only to add that he does not feel that). However, Reitman allows Ryan only a handful of such flip comments, which would push the film more in the direction of romantic comedy and which, though raising a laugh at that precise moment, would feel like a cheap shot and erode sympathy for Ryan, especially when aimed at Natalie who believes in such romantic ideals.