"Up In The Air" by Jason Reitman

"Up In The Air" was up in the air. There were a lot of interesting "we're born alone die alone" variety themes in the film, including how technology furthers that reality, and funny moments. There's the commitment as a fear of living and dying theme, and love can save us if we can find it theme. But I think the tone of the film was way off. It felt too cutesy like it was trying to be a household comedy in that "Juno" or Hollywood holiday-season-film kind of way with its happity boppity soundtrack, without that dire-dilemma-as-absurd-comedy irony that "Juno" or Jacques Demy's "Umbrellas of Cherbourg" had, the bright colors and happy tone contrasting with darker issues of social-convention-challenging pregnancy. This film needed more grotesque realism like that of the Coen Brother's "Fargo"'s picture of the midwest and David Fincher's "The Fight Club"'s unrooted corporate/modern world alienation. There were a lot of heavy issues addressed, but ultimately were so watered down by the try-to-please-everyone genre, having too many themes of equal weight, and George Clooney's coolness, that the film felt wishy washy. A weak directorial effort, because I think the material could've been there but one theme needed to be more of a singular driving force, with a decidedly darker ironic aesthetic vision. Clooney also, his whole body language was too movie-star confident. I think his character had a confidence, but not that cool. As unbound as his character was to geographical space, his world still existed in the confined seating of an airplane seat and all the public spaces his body moved through throughout his traveling business life. Clooney, the at-ease actor, became a distraction. The one detail that I thought was so appropriate was Vera Famiglia's satin blouses. Yuck. I hate them with a passion. And I found they so perfectly expressed the world she portrayed. All we needed to also see was a shoe with a bad clunky heel on it. Ick.

[Aha! After writing this entry, I discover, Reitman also directed "Juno"!]