Toronto Film Festival, 3rd Day

UP IN THE AIR directed by Jason Reitman USA

First let me describe the circumstances of the screening. The film was being shown at the Ryerson, a 1200 seat auditorium that is part of Ryerson University in Toronto. It is the largest traditionally arranged auditorium that the festival uses. Jason Reitman pledged from the stage that it would be the site of all his first public screenings. I can understand his enthusiasm, because I have seen all three of his films of the Ryerson. And we have been a great audience to kick things off.

The red carpet area, where the media interviews and the fans scream, is awkwardly placed across the ticket line at the Ryerson. I had expected the screening to be particularly crowded with media, because George Clooney is the star of the film and he has been very much in evidence in Toronto. What I hadn't expected was the appearance of Oprah Winfrey, whose connection to the film I cannot even fathom. Her presence was enough to set off a firestorm of both media and fan enthusiasm and the consequent hubbub postponed the beginning of the show by more than half an hour. When the festival representative finally took the stage to get things going, she had to request that the front half of the auditorium to turn and face the stage and screen instead of being turned around to face Oprah in her seat. It even required Reitman to come out before he was introduced and admonish the audience to sit down and let the movie begin.

Now on to the movie itself. It is another big success for Jason Reitman. From his first film, Thank You for Smoking, through Juno, he has developed a singular visual storytelling style that is at once exhilarating and somehow classically cinematic. He once again has chosen to portray off kilter characters and the situation they inhabit. Clooney plays a kind of one man traveling corporate firing squad, crisscrossing the country to deliver termination notices to corporate workers, a task their bosses should really be doing. In the context of the film, he does the job very well. He really enjoys his life, not the firing part, but the state of being perpetually rootless. He loves flying, he loves staying in hotels, he loves driving rental cars (full size only, please).

In a hotel bar, he meets his female counterpart -- a traveling consultant who is almost always on the road. After a classic scene where they match courtesy cards, reminiscent of the brilliant death squad competition in Smoking, they fall into bed, and then they fall into the perfect rootless, commitment-free relationship.

Summoned back to HQ in Omaha, Clooney is confronted with a new corporate whiz kid who has conceived of a revolutionary, money-saving procedure for firing people via teleconferencing. This not only offends Clooney's sense of doing the job well, but it throws a major roadblock in his plan to acquire 10,000,000 miles on the American Airlines mileage plan. The whiz kid, played as an earnest, irony-free recent college graduate by the going-places Anna Kendrick, is the most formidable foe Clooney has faced in his career. The two of them are sent on the road so that she can learn a technique that she is about to adapt to the cyber world. Their scenes together -- traveling, arguing, firing people -- are the highest point in a movie that is pretty much full of high points.

Maybe it's Toronto, maybe it's the Ryerson, maybe it's Jason Reitman. But for me, he can do no wrong (so far). This is another home run for him, from traveling montages, to aerial views of American cities, to a beautifully crafted story, to incisively etched characters. Reitman has done it again, with some expert help from Clooney, Kendrick, Vera Farmiga, Jason Bateman, Amy Morton, and a few dozen amazing character actors (I think they're actors) who played the poor souls Clooney and Kendrick set adrift. There's comedy, there's pathos, and there's the whole -- probably unintended -- dilemma of escalating unemployment that is all too current than all too real.

The quality of this film is no surprise, sort of like a designated hitter getting a home run. Jason Reitman is a wonderful director. I rate this film A.