Jason Reitman, Writer/Director of the film "Up in the Air" which preimiered at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival. (C.J. LaFrance/Getty Images)
Although "Up in the Air" is filled with as many laughs as can fit a comedy, filmmaker Jason Reitman feels that the film, based on a book of the same name, is a telling tale of current times.
“The book spoke to me because I thought it was incredibly relevant, not because it was about a guy who fired people for a living, but because we are living in a time when we are more disconnected than we have ever been,” said Reitman.
“We think we are connected because we text each other, and we have web chats, and we email each other, but we actually don’t look in each other’s eyes and have conversations anymore. And we have become unfamiliar with the idea of home in general. We can off in an airport anywhere and feel some sort of familiarity but there is no real sense of community anymore.
“That is why I found the book fascinating. And it gave me an opportunity to tell this story of what it means to have someone important or something important in your life.”
“Up in the Air” is about a man named Ryan Bingham (played by George Clooney) who works for a firm which fires employees for other companies which do not have the ability or confidence to lay out hte pink slips themselves.
Bingham truly enjoys his life as he travels all the time, having his entire life compartmentalized and disconnected from friends and family.
Yet all comes to a potential halt when a new Ivy League college graduate, Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick) pitches the idea of cost-cutting by performing the firings via teleconference to Bingham’s boss, Craig Gregory (Jason Bateman).
“Up in the Air” opens in wide release on November 25.
