Up in the Air

Directed by Jason Reitman

(R)

****

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A corporate hit man gets a lesson in life.

Up in the Air arrives right on time, said Leah Rozen in People. Director Jason Reitman’s new film, about a man (George Clooney) who flies around the country firing people, “thrums with zeitgeist zing.” While Clooney is “as good as he’s ever been” as a smooth bearer of bad news, the film’s remarkable immediacy comes from scenes featuring actual people from the ranks of the newly unemployed. Reitman contrasts his film’s humorous portions with a “pungent and affecting series of vignettes” about real people who’ve lost real jobs, said Joe Morgenstern in The Wall Street Journal. Their stories capture the fear and anxieties of the moment, but also validate the director’s “expansive view of comedy.” Reitman, who also directed Juno and Thank You for Smoking, “goes for life, not just for laughs.” His film is “everything that Hollywood has forgotten how to do,” said Owen Gleiberman in Entertainment Weekly. The dialogue is smart, the characters genuine and surprising, and the subject matter marvelously in sync with the times. Up in the Air is a “rare and sparkling gem of a movie.”