Up in the Air: so close

Up in the Air: best picture nominee starring george clooney and directed by the juno dude

i'm grateful to juno. it was a really adorable picture, adorable in the way that isn't too irritating while at the same time being awesome--more than this, however, it hipped me to both patti smith and the fact that the stooges were a band before iggy went solo-ish. i can never be too grateful. every time i hear patti smith say, "the angel looked down at him in his stern coffin and said 'aw, pretty boy, can't you show me nothing but surrender?'" i remember just how much i owe to the juno dude (i also remember angel sanctuary. angel sanctuary: what the hell?).

so i won't be too harsh...or at least i'll think twice about everything negative i have to say about up in the air. it isn't even that it's that much that i thought was wrong. it just succumbs to the temptation to line up all its ducks, and in the end doesn't get to where it should, in my opinion.

what i mean by the ducks is as follows: 1. up in the air subscribes to charlize theron character's solution to maeby's oceanwalker conundrum in season 3 of arrested development by choosing not to end. that is its prerogative, but one can't help but think that maybe up in the air could have chosen some less annoying way to end a story about a character that one doesn't care very deeply about in the first place (guess who won't be buying the up in the air dvd?). i mean, if the fate of george clooney man left the theater with me, and then became a source of personal torture for weeks on end, i'd say, yeah! give me that old fashioned indeterminate ending! but...no. to have george clooney character not end put kind of a fine point on the fact that i didn't really much care what happened to him either way. 2. up in the air includes, as far as my mom found out from npr, footage of actual normal-people firees talking about their firing. woot. this is the kind of stuff that the oscar judges dig, man. this footage was incorporated into the movie with a lot of grace, and i feel like it was right of the movie to give real people the opportunity to talk about their experience--and the gesture, the gravity, the beauty of the idea and its application would have been so much improved if this movie wasn't in the running for best picture or whatever oscar it's in the running for. i know that that's a case of "damned if you do, damned if you don't," and i won't belabor it.

3. is the real sticking place for me: the question of genre. now, if up in the air were a comedy, even a bittersweet comedy, i think i would have liked it. juno director dude can handle his metaphors, and he does a good job of making sad things funny and funny things poignant, capturing the everyday exchanges of humor and pathos in a way weirdly reminiscent of james cameron-when-he's-not-attempting-to-tell-the-main-story (that's a compliment). juno director takes things seriously, and extends the everyday to a point that seems somehow close to realistic: things that happen in life don't just happen; they touch us nearly--they hurt and they're funny. up in the air does both of these things well. what it doesn't do well, to me, is hold itself together. now, george clooney character in many ways does hang together, but there are ways in which he just doesn't--

it's hard to explain. the movie focuses around a rather unlikeable, difficult to get to know character. i feel like it fills in probable details for every facet of this character's character: he's afraid of attachments because his dad died? because he used to be a jock? because he's good looking? any one of these are possible, but the point is that the movie doesn't leave that sort of detail out. if you want an explanation you can find it. what the movie DOES leave out is...heart? no, it has heart. soul? maybe closer. george clooney character has situational drama pressing in on him from every side; his character, in my eyes, does not sustain this onslaught. his issues don't make him more interesting. they make you feel more sympathy for him, but that sympathy doesn't turn to empathy--the character doesn't merit the acting that clooney puts into him.

i mean, what are we doing peeking in on this dude's life? the movie, which does so many things so well, doesn't seem to be able to answer this question. he's pretty, he's aging, he's good at his job, his job provides a lot of situational comitragic opportunities...the introduction of his tight-ass new boss-type and his loose-edge girlfriend provides characterization exposition, but what do we learn? nothing that we didn't learn in the first five minutes of the movie: man likes to be alone, and cares about other people with only middling success. plot development after plot development get thrown into the abyss of this characterization, but in essence it stays the same. it's not up in the air; it's completely definite. his issues get explored; his character does not. are characterization and issues the same? i'd always before this movie kind of thought so too. apparently i am wrong.

what i mean by genre is this: if this film had been made as a weird quirky buddy movie, i would have liked it. if it had been made as a romantic comedy, i would have liked it. but it was made as a serious movie, and as such, i don't feel that it quite did what it could have. i walk into a serious movie, and i have to be given back what i've put in. i am willing to fall in love with george clooney character, to cry for him, to laugh with him, to feel his pain, and to carry him with me for the rest of my life. but i'm NOT going to do ANY of that without a fight. and this is for reasons--i still remember sitting in the theater sobbing over snow falling on cedars, like, ten minutes after it was done, knowing the whole time that it was one of the worst movies i'd ever seen. movies can't just expect loyalty and devotion when they want to be serious--they have to earn it. i speak, because nobody else seems willing to, for viewers like myself, who are willing to give everything to an experience, if the experience is capable of asking everything. up in the air wasn't, quite.

and, please, find a band that can sing. i am totally going to your next movie, juno dude. but i would take it as a personal favor if all of the songs underlaying the action were not basically rewrites of "hallelujah." it's a kick-ass song, and i like broken acoustic riffs as much as the next person, but the movie could have used something else. just once.