Up in the Air

After a short flight to Dallas, and a fairly light day at work, I am reclining on a made up bed at the Crown Plaza hotel in Downtown, watching George Clooney play Ryan Bingham in "Up in the Air".  What an appropriate movie to watch as a business traveler.

The film starts off lightly, the way most relationships do.  We are meeting Clooney's character for the first time.  He is easy going and explains with delight in his voice how he managed to boil traveling down to a science. 

(Bingham's packing demonsration reminds me that I forgot to pack my toothbrush. Fortunately, they have plenty of extra toothbrushes at the front desk. I know this being a freaquent traveler myself.) 

Bingham is a professional terminator, who fires people in a comforting manner.  He is also an inspirational speaker, who encorages others to follow his example of relinquishing their possessions, and commitments to lighten up their life load.  Bingham's inspiration speech is worth quoting:

"How much does your life weigh?  Imagine for a second that you're carrying a backpack. I want you to pack it with all the stuff that you have in your life...  Fill it with all the people in your life. Feel the straps cutting into your shoulders.  Feel the weight of that bag. Make no mistake, your relationships are the heaviest compenents in your life.  All those negotiations and arguments, secrets and compromises.  You don't need to carry all that weight.  Why don't you set the bag down?  Some animals were meant to carry each other to live symbiotically over a lifetime. Star crossed lovers, monogamous swans.  We are not those animals. The slower we move, the faster we die.  We are not swans.  We are sharks."

Powerful words.  Moving.  I could not help but agree with Bingham that some people are worth loosing - the arguing is just not worth it.  I would not don't mind stuffing these people in a bag and leaving it outside my door.

But let's stop and think about what he is saying: is it really better to be detached from everything, like Bingham?

Bingham is free.  He seems happy on his own.  He claims that he never wants go get married; never wants to have kids.  He sees no value in kids or marriage.  He does not care about love. He is completely removed from everyone, even his sister. Traveling perpetually, earning miles, staying in hotels, eating alone, hooking up with random attractive women.  Bingham dreads being grounded and coming home for the 70 days out of the year when he is not flying around like a bird. 

Make no mistaske, Bingham is not a careless emotionless guy.  He is a compasionate, friendly, thoughtful man.  He just does not want to feel the weight of life on his shoulders and chooses to stay on the move.  He calls this the mature life choice and explains it to 24 year old Emily, who cannot accept it.

It is funny to watch a young girl take Bigham apart. Pure in her idealistic exectations of life, she calls him out when he explains that he is not interested in a serious realtionship with a woman he is seeing:

"Don't you think it's worth giving her a chance... at something real?"

Bingham responds with "your definition of something real will evolve as you get older"

Emily does not give up: "Can yo ustop condescending? ...Or is that one of the principles of your bullshit phylosophy?... The isolation, the traveling, is that supposed to be charming?"

"No," Bingham explains: "It is simply a life choice."

"A life choice? It's a cucoon of slef banishment! ... You lead a cycle of life that makes it impossible for you to have any kind of huma connection. And now this woman comes along and somehow runs through the gauntlet of your ridiculous life choice and comes out on the other end smiling, just so that you can call her casual!? I need to grow up? You are a 12 year old!"

With time, Bingham realizes that "life is better with company"... it is lonely out there ... "everybody needs a co pilot". Unfortunately for him, the woman he falls for turns out to be  married with children. Poor Bingham falls victim to reality - he was an escape, a break from one's normal life, a casual relationship, a "parenthesis".  At this point, when the irony of life hurts the most, he earns 10 million miles, which are meaningless to him now.

On a lighter note, the film has a few comedic breaks.  I really enjoyed the difference in femaile perception and expectations between the ages of 24 and past 34.

Its refreshing to hear a young girl go thrhough her long list of requirements and compare it to a very short list of requirements of an older woman. The only thing on which they both agree is that a man must have a nice smile.

Up in the air is about choices we make in life: to float in the air or to come down and plant our feet firmly into the ground.    Family is hard work.  Those, who choose to get married and have children, do so because they don't want to spend their entire life floating around.

Clooney is a charismatic genious.  His Oscar nomination for this role is well deserved.  He is equally charming when he is firing people or being played.  I liked this film.  It made me happy to be alive.