Well crafted, nicely shot, starring likable actors and actresses, and getting lots of pre-Oscar buzz. There's a whole lot to like about Up In the Air but I'll tell you now, it's shaping up to be the Crash of 2010. Maybe I'm way too biased because it's entirely too hopeful for me and I hate the message it gives, which is essentially: "lonely person must find others to find happiness." After an amusing and strong beginning where we see George Clooney's crazy travel habits, the movie devolves into a whole mess of emotional cliches and I couldn't stomach it anymore. It's a decent movie, it lets Anna Kendrick and Vera Farmiga do a lot of fun scenes, but it's no best picture contender. Which means of course it'll win.
Let me tangent here and spoil a little bit of an insignificant plot thing. So in the movie Clooney's sister is about to get married but her fiance gets cold feet a few hours before the wedding. After getting a pep talk from George, he decides he's ready to marry the sister and she joyfully says "of course!" after being in absolute tears. I'm against this. If the guy gets cold feet right before the wedding, that's an automatic, "Cancel the reception, shit needs to be re-evaluated immediately. I don't care what you say right now, clearly you are not ready for this." Are we agreed here?
