Up In The Air (2009)

I have to confess that I studiously avoid Jason Reitman’s previous films JUNO and THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING. Having said that, the dialogue in this film (Reitman’s and Sheldon Turner’s screenplay based on the Walter Kim novel) is some of the best I’ve heard in years. Witty and on target yet still the way real people talk, not movie characters talk. With a job that keeps him constantly traveling and living in airports, airplanes and hotel rooms, a man (George Clooney) comes to terms with the emptiness of his existence. Clooney gives a superlative performance and is he the last real male Movie Star? He holds the camera as effortlessly as Gable and Cary Grant and is a better actor to boot. Anna Kendrick is getting all the Oscar buzz but it’s Vera Farmiga who really shines here as Clooney’s female equivalent (though the film saves a real kicker for the film’s final moments). Probably as close to perfection as any American film of its year. With Jason Bateman and Melanie Lynskey.