UP IN THE AIR (2009) - Jason Reitman

We live in times which are rich for satire. It’s easy to poke fun at the state of the world, but sometimes satire can wander into the territory of cliché. Yet Jason Reitman’s latest film, Up In The Air manages to be satirical without ever being patronising. It’s a film that is perfectly timed for the world today. A world of unemployment, foreclosures and a society struggling for identity and direction.

Ryan Bingham has possibly the worst job in the world. He is the person companies hire in order to fire their employees. All he sees every day is people on the verge of nervous and emotional breakdown. And yet, he loves his life. He is constantly moving, working out of a suitcase. He travels the US, lives in hotels and counts air miles as achievements. And yet, he is alone. He barely talks to his two sisters, and has few friends. But his life is on course for a change. His company are introducing video conferencing, which would allow it’s employees to fire people from one central location. This threatens Bingham’s lifestyle. So he takes his company’s wunderkind, the developer of the video program, Natalie Keener, on the road to see what exactly it’s like to fire a person.



As I’ve mentioned, Up In The Air is the perfect film for these times. It deals with themes that many people can relate to right now. Unemployment is rife, companies are closing, and people just feel a sense of constant loss. It’s to Reitman’s credit that he uses real people to depict the people being laid-off by Bingham. Apart from a few actors who depict more plot-central characters, everybody Bingham fires are people who recently lost their jobs. Reitman instructed these people to tell the camera what they would have liked to have told their former employers, and the emotion really carries over. It adds gravitas to the film and makes the emotional impact more palpable.

George Clooney has found the role he was born to play. Ryan Bingham is suave and charming. Yet he seems detached from proceedings. It’s isolation he’s chosen, and perhaps, being a movie star and not interacting with ‘normal’ people like the rest of us, Clooney brings some of himself to the role. It’s a great performance from him, and indeed, the rest of the cast. Newcomer, Anna Kendrick plays Bingham’s charge, Natalie Keener. Keener is straight out of college and has something to prove, and yet is incredibly vulnerable when it comes to personal issues. She breaks Bingham’s isolationism down as he shows her that people aren’t just statistics. They’re perfectly cast against each other and lend real credibility to the film.



Jason Reitman’s career has taken off very well. His first three features, Thank You For Smoking, Juno, and Up In The Air are commercial and critical successes that deal with issues people can relate to. Up In The Air is probably the best film he’s made so far. It manages to capture the mood of the average person, while managing to tell a well-rounded personal story. It’s a very very good film, and worthy of the nominations it has received.


9/10

JUNO (2007) - Jason Reitman

Every year at the Oscars, there’s one film that doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the pack. A kind of film that’s no where as big as the others, dealing with smaller issues and featuring a cast of characters that are never meant to set the world on fire. Last year’s ‘Little Film That Could’ was Little Miss Sunshine. I have to admit, by the time I got around to seeing Little Miss Sunshine (the screenings were CONSTANTLY sold out), I felt that the film was over-hyped and not nearly as good as people made out. The same sort of hype surrounds this year’s LFTC, Juno.

Juno is a smart, witty, outsider of a sixteen year old girl. She doesn’t fit in with the rest of the school crowd, playing guitar in a band and being picked on by the jocks. At the beginning of the film, Juno is guzzling SunnyD in order to work up enough pee for a pregnancy test. After three such tests, the results are undeniable, she’s pregnant. She decides on an abortion, but after visiting the clinic, she decides to keep the baby and give it up for adoption. After scouring the want-ads for couples seeking babies, she meets Mark and Vanessa, a seemingly perfect couple. Vanessa definitely wants a baby, but Mark isn’t so sure.



Juno is the kind of film that’s a hybrid of a coming of age story and teen comedy. It’s feels like the film Wes Anderson would have made if he took a stab at a teen comedy and toned down his signature quirkiness. It’s smart, but it’s not the kind of film that fits in with the Superbad crowd. Unlike the similarly-plotted Knocked Up, it’s not a laugh riot, but rather a charming, character-driven smart comedy. Written by first-timer (and currently 38th smartest person in Hollywood, according to Entertainment Weekly) Diablo Cody, the film is driven by the screenplay. Some have accused Juno of being too smart. That the younger characters in the film, Juno and her friends wouldn’t speak as wittily and smartly in real life. But all that is pretty much irrelevant. The script works very well and is damn entertaining. And that’s one of the most important things for the success of the film.

The other key element to the success of a character-driven film like Juno is the casting of the titular character, Juno. Director Jason Reitman made a wise decision in casting Ellen Page as Juno. Page delivered an outstanding performance in 2005’s brilliant thriller, Hard Candy. Juno is a confident, smart teenager. But she’s not wise. She approaches her pregnancy in the kind of twisted logic that would be expected of a young girl who’s more concerned with music and horror movies than the baby she’s carrying. And it’s to Ellen Page’s credit that she plays Juno so well.



Ellen Page is supported by a cast of actors that play their characters very well. Particular credit must be given to Jennifer Garner who plays Vanessa, one half of the couple who placed the ad Juno responds to. Vanessa longs for a baby. She can’t have one herself, and you can see from Garner’s performance that this hurts her. Despite her best efforts not to, she’s pinning all her hopes on the baby Juno’s carrying, and this longing is subtly carried across by Garner. Hers, and her screen husband Jason Bateman’s performances are far better than the performances they deliver in 2007’s appalling film, The Kingdom. Michael Cera, no stranger to comedies plays Juno’s one-time sexual conquest, Paulie. Cera has the nervous teen thing down to a tee, and while his character is less cartoony than that of Superbad, he provides excellent support for Ellen Page. Juno’s father and stepmother are played by J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney, both excellent character actors.

Juno seems to have split some audiences. Some found the overtly witty dialogue grating and the film itself a little twee. But this isn’t the case at all. It’s a charming film. The script is certainly witty, and while there may be something to be said about how the characters speak, and how overtly smart and witty the dialogue is, it works within the context of the movie, and shouldn’t really be called into question. The actors are all very comfortable with their characters, and the cast is very likable. It’s in no way a perfect film, but Juno is very entertaining. If you failed to even smile at it, I’d call into question whether you do in fact, have a soul!


8/10

THE KINGDOM (2007) - Peter Berg

Now that the western masses have gotten used to the fact that the middle east is the new ‘enemy,’ we’re going to see a whole slew of films that attempt to tackle the issues at the heart of this global conflict. Some of the films will actually make a concerted effort to explain and understand what’s going on in the world. Other films will attempt to cash in. And in between, there’ll be films like Peter Berg’s The Kingdom. The actor cum director’s film is an attempt to tell us that, ya know, the folks over there are just as normal and conflicted as us. But instead, the result is a boring, patronising and clichéd thriller.

The film opens with a montage that briefly explains how the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the US has developed over the years. A montage that ends with a CGI plane crashing into a CGI World Trade Centre. Just so the audience is reminded what happened on that terrible day six years ago. It’s a rather stupid thing to put into the film, as it has little bearing on what follows other than to let us know that US-Saudi relations are well, strained. But we don’t need to be reminded of this. In Saudi Arabia, we see a heavily defended US compound that is home to the workers and families of an American oil company. They play softball, have barbeques and enjoy life. Two terrorists dressed as guards initiate an attack on the compound killing many. But this attack is only a precursor for a larger and more devastating attack on the people who try to help the injured and dying. In the US, the FBI is eager to investigate the attack. But due to the strained relations with the Saudis, they’re reluctant to send a team. After some political wrangling, four agents, led by Jamie Foxx jet off to Saudi Arabia to investigate. They team up with a colonel in the Saudi police force who also wants to find out who’s behind the attacks.



I’ve nothing against films with political subtexts. Films like that walk a VERY thin tightrope between uber-jingoistic shoot em ups like Rambo and preachy holier-than thou films. Sometimes these films can be very interesting and open the audience’s eyes to issues they might have only a scant knowledge of. However, The Kingdom, while not jingoistic, does pander to the lowest common denominator in it’s political subtext. The film breaks down into three distinct parts, which is the first problem. Instead of layering the screenplay, the film starts off getting the political part out of the way. The wrangling and red tape is dealt with, the agents find a way to work WITH the Saudis instead of against them. Next up is the CSI Middle East part, with the agents doing their parts to investigate who’s responsible for the attacks. And finally, the action part kicks into gear, where the rest of the film is entirely forgotten about and a ridiculous amount of bullets fly.

When the film does attempt to tackle US-Saudi relations, it does so in an extremely patronising manner. There is no subtlety about anything at all. Foxx and Ashraf Barhom, who plays the Saudi colonel bond over pop-culture. And then we have the breakdown in communication where the US characters use language that the Suadis misunderstand with ‘hilarious’ results. It’s the kind of thing that belongs in Brett Ratner movies and is neither funny nor appropriate in this movie. In fact, Barhom’s character himself is a rather shallow move. He’s absolutely dedicated to finding who’s responsible for the attack, but we don’t need him to tell us he feels that way for the whole time. It’s all too clear the filmmakers are determined to know that he’s a good guy too. Absolutely unnecessary.



As for the acting, the cast with includes Chris Cooper, Jason Bateman, Jennifer Garner, Jeremy Piven and Danny Huston should all be on form. However, their characters are badly written clichés and therefore, they cant do very much with them. I don’t think their performances are their fault. Bateman, who was brilliant in Arrested Development is the ‘comedy relief,’ yet isn’t funny but incredibly annoying. Exactly the kind of person you wouldn’t want with you in the Middle East. Cooper, who is usually brilliant is the grizzled explosives expert that badly written films of this type always have. In fact, the only actor who is remotely interesting in the film is Ashraf Barhom as Col. Faris Al Ghazi. But again, it’s an incredibly shallow character and leave the actor with very little to do.

I’m sure there will be a good film that tackles the political situation with the Middle East. It’s a subject that has plenty of room for exploration. But The Kingdom is in no way, shape or form, that film. Badly written, paced, acted and directed, it’s a bad film.


3/10