Sunday, April 11, 2010

Up In The Air

Beautiful spring weather yesterday, so we went for a walk to Namba and the Toho cinema complex to see "Up in the air" with George Clooney.

Bingham is a "career consultant" (he fires people for a living) that spends most days of the year traveling and dreams of hitting the near-mythical ten million frequent-flier mile mark. We follow him as he meets a kindred soul on the road and deals with changes at work, both of which threaten his insular, rootless existence.

The movie takes a light tone and sometimes borders on comedy. The characters are all likeable and easy to sympathize with. But it is a fairly dark story at heart, and the main character is one of the most tragic figures I have seen outside of a Bergman movie. This is an adaptation of a book, and I get the impression that the book is both deeper - we get only hints of what must be substantial subplots - and darker than the movie. It's probably worth checking out.

A fun, engaging movie, it has also disabused me of any remaining notion I might have had about business travel being attractive or romantic.

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