“Up in the Air” – The Perfect Film for Road Warriors

I've now seen the film Up in the Air twice - which should say something about how much I liked the film. But, of course, I'm an airplane and travel dork, so I was just thrilled that a film about frequent travelers was being made in the first place. On both occasions, however, I saw the film with non-dork friends who enjoyed it as well. I don't want to spoil the plot, so I won't be writing all of my impressions, but I did want to share a few thoughts.

As one can surmise from the trailers, Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) is trained to fire people for companies that don't want to deal with the process. It sounds like depressing work, but Ryan appears to love it, especially due to the travel it requires. He is the definition of a road warrior, traveling over 300 days out of the year. He is immensely loyal to American, and his only concern in life is how to continually increase his mileage balance. In fact, that quest seems to have replaced Ryan's needs for social connections - he shuns any kind of personal relationship - and that's the focus of the film. The miles and points do play a big role, but they fade into the background fairly quickly. The big focus is on Ryan's reltaionships with Alex, a woman he meets who finds his elite status "sexy," and Natalie, a new employee trainee fresh out of college, who finds Ryan's way of life puzzling.

I'll leave the summary at that as to not spoil the movie. But the film is certainly appealing for all audiences (but especially travelers), while it does share a strong and important message at the same time.

In terms of accuracy, the film does a pretty good job. Some benefits of American's AAdvantage program are exaggerated a bit, but that's necessary to move the plot along. My biggest pet peeve is the movie poster, with Ryan standing in a terminal in front of a 747. That scene first doesn't make much sense as American doesn't fly that kind of aircraft. But, after seeing the film I discovered that scene is from Detroit. One would only find that aircraft in the McNamara terminal, which is only for SkyTeam members - Ryan shouldn't even be there!

Of course, when I told my friends about that, they didn't really seem to care.