Last week, my husband and I had an “in-house” date of dinner and a movie after the kids had gone to bed. These are the kinds of romantic things you do when your family is large and your budget is small.
Having recently watched this year’s Academy Awards, we decided to check out the much-honored and raved about Up in the Air starring George Clooney.
I really like George Clooney. He’s one of the few popular actors in Hollywood who has any kind of real charisma, in my opinion. I can see why people like him, and in most romantic roles he’s played (see Leatherheads, for example) I find him genuinely charming. But even Clooney couldn’t charm his way through this one.
This was an Oscar-nominated film? This was an Oscar-nominated performance? No way. This was just a really really bad movie. One that, for some reason, I felt compelled to watch all the way through to its miserable end.
Clooney’s character, Ryan Bingham, an always-traveling, work-a-holic loner, is sometimes pathetic, but mostly just a jerk. The only less likable character in the movie is his love interest, Alex, played by Vera Farmiga (who was also nominated for an Oscar—crazy, that!).
A movie about jerks can still be worthwhile if it makes a meaningful statement about the human experience. But the most meaningful statement this movie seems bent on making is that commitment is silly and women can be just as piggish as men.
Not exactly moving stuff.
As I watched the two main characters exchange raunchy text messages and casual sex, I felt only bad for them. For the actors, I mean. It was embarrassing that these two otherwise dignified professionals have been reduced to playing characters with the maturity level of junior high school boys. (Sorry, junior high school boys I know. I mean the ones from my seventh grade gym class years ago and I’m sure you are nothing like them.)
Have some dignity! Have some self respect! Have ... a conversation! I think we were supposed to be charmed by this older couple’s free spirited youthfulness. But really? Sometimes coarseness is just coarseness.
I could have been satisfied if there had been at least one real relationship in the movie, or if any of its numerous commitment-avoiding characters had come to a realization about the value of monogamous, lifelong relationships. I had hope that would happen in the heart to heart talk Ryan has with his sister’s fiance—but the theme of that conversation winds up being only that being alone is “kinda lonely” and and you “need a co-pilot.” Hardly cathartic.
Final proof of the fact that Up In the Air was a complete and total waste of my time was the fact that I did not cry once.
I’m easy. I cry during Pampers commercials. If a movie about relationships leaves me dry-eyed, I can say with confidence that it will leave pretty much everyone cold.
Am I wrong? Did you see Up in the Air? What did you think? And to ensure that my next date night won’t be such a dud, please share some DVD titles you’ve recently enjoyed.
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I saw it and I had the opposite reaction. I thought Clooney’s character underwent a subtle transformation throughout the story that taught him the commitment-free life he was leading was empty and meaningless. He seems lost at the end because he’s no longer satisfied with the only life he’s ever known. Yet moving on into a more fulfilling life that includes commitment is scary so we’re left not knowing which one he’s going to choose. I thought the scene when he meets his mileage goals and the fact that he helps the Anna Kendrick character find a new job at the end signify this character is not in the same place mentally and emotionally in which he started the film. I also felt the moment of grace occurs during the twist near the end which I won’t specify in case anyone hasn’t seen it. I felt it made him come face-to-face with the type of lifestyle he’d been living, and now he’s seen how empty and wrong it is.
I totally agree. The film ended logically—we couldn’t expect Ryan to have a meaningful relationship again by the time the credits rolled, especially since the first woman he’s actually wanted in his life’s “backpack” turned out to be deceitful and something of a villain. But it still seemed like a waste of a movie ticket. What was the point?
On a different note, go see The Blind Side! Loved it.
I haven’t seen it but I recently watched “Trucker” about a female trucker who is reunited with her son when his father gets sick. I especially like the ending scene. Not really a date night kind of movie, but good.
Thanks Danielle—after my husbands mom and now you pretty much said the same things and gave it the thumbs down, we won’t even waste the dollar to rent it from redbox. I think Clooney’s best role was in “Oh Brother Where Art Thou”—he should have been nominated for that.
I agree with you completely, Danielle.
I was on an American Airlines flight and it happened to be the in-flight movie. (I wasn’t surprised when I noticed that AA was the airline of choice in the movie) Knowing that it was nominated for so many awards I decided to watch it. Bad move. I kept holding out waiting for it to come together, and it never happened.
I wish I could have back those 2 hours of my life to read or sleep!
As far as recommending a movie, “The Blind Side” with Sandra Bullock was excellent.
It’s great to see my own opinions reflected in your article. My husband and I watched it before it won any awards. My impression was that it was a very, very bad movie for all the reasons you state. It was a movie full of pathetic people—where is the entertainment in that? A couple weeks later we went to another movie. On our way to our car, we heard a couple talking about Up in the Air complaining what a bad movie it was.
I never let the Oscars (or any award) or even what any professional critic says about what I watch, whether it’s a television show or a movie.
Take my advice dear, watch the older movies from the 1930s and 1940s…and maybe the 1950s-early 60s. Leave the newer ones for young adults.
That being said, if one was a HUGE mega George Clooney guru and just “drools” at the slightest glimpse of him, then just seeing him in this movie, bad plot or not, would be worth the ticket.
Danielle,
I totally disagree. This movie was A++. It showed the proper consequences of sin. Deceit. Pain. Despair. Emptiness. The typical hollywood theme is the feel good “Bridges of Madison County” where adultery and casual sex are presented as virtue w/out consequences. Even better is the fact that Clooney draws folks who may never hear the true message that sin does cause pain like this in the real world. Movies typically provide only fantasy, and the problem is the fantasy is often part of the evil one’s lies and sin. I hope hollywood makes more movies like this. The only change I would have made to it was to show how empty the married women’s life must have been living in deceit and violation of her husband and children.
Loved it! The character development was fantastic and the three main characters fit their roles perfectly. On the pro side it was great to see Clooney come around and realize his life was completely empty, I would have loved to have seen him grow spirtiualy but that is Hollywood and we will never get that. It also depicted the adultress and living a shallow hallow life.
I agree, Danielle. The movie was an insult to women and all rational, intelligent adults. I didn’t appreciate their attempt to portray an empty lifestyle as acceptable and normal, while a healthy relationship is deemed intangible and nonexistent. It was a waste of my time and left me sad that others might be deceived to see relationships through this distorted lense.
We watched “Wilderness Love” with Valerie Bertinelli a couple months ago and that was a cute one! A husband and wife in Alaska who divorced two years ago and are sharing custody of their three kids. The kids decide since Mom has a boyfriend, they should help out dad by putting an ad in a singles magazine. Funny, but also interesting to figure out what happened between these two and to see the resolution.
Couldn’t disagree more, Danielle. We were supposed to be charmed by Ryan and Alex? I haven’t the slightest doubt that the writer and director intended just the opposite: we were meant to be appalled, especially as the truth comes to light. Ryan is nearly paralyzed, and Alex is depicted as a loathsome traitor to her family. Just as Brideshead Revisited was about the grace of God, Up in the Air was about love and commitment, and a paean to both.
I agree with Kara in recommending “The Blind Side”. I finally got to see it last night after it went on sale in DVD - I refuse to pay the outlandish prices to go to a theater when I can wait and buy the DVD for not much more and have it to watch over and over or give it away. Thanks Danielle for all you do. God Bless
Can’t watch Clooney—he’s right up there with Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins with their left-wing liberal activism. Can’t get that out of my head enough to watch a movie.
A few good ones, imo:
Faith Like Potatoes
Cinderella Man
On a Clear Day
Ultimate Gift
Amazing Grace
Bella
or older movies like: Father Goose, Scarlet and Black, The Fighting Sullivans, Boys Town, Bells of St. Mary’s
Up in the Air was sad. A really cute movie with Bonnie Hunt and Aidan Quinn is Stolen Summer. Although, I don’t like how movies portray nuns who teach elementary school. All the nuns I had in school were really nice to me.
Some unsung DVDs I recently liked, and think you and Dan might like, too, Danielle: “Bright Star,” “Moon” and the ‘06 Western miniseries “Broken Trail.”
Liked, but not sure how you two would feel about: “Goodbye Solo,” “District 9,” “Silent Light” and the Werner Herzog documentary “Encounters at the End of the World.”
Loved, but I’ll bet you’d both loathe: “Synecdoche, New York.”
dear all
I was surprised that I liked “Up in the Air”. I think that the Clooney character grows throughout the movie. He decides he wants more than just casual sex, and goes to see his girlfriend and is surprised by the fact that she is married and not growing with him.
Clooney realizes the emptiness of his life, and that of his girlfriend. I think that the movie implicitly says that he has changed, but is still in the process if finding what he is looking for. The accomplishment of flying a million miles isn’t what he thinks it is without a loved one to share in that accomplishment.
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