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Up in the Air

EMAILPRINTParamount Pictures

Up in the Air reviews
83
6.7 User Score:

Movie Info

Genre(s): Comedy  |  Drama

Written by: Jason Reitman
Sheldon Turner

Directed by: Jason Reitman

Release Date:
Theatrical: December 4, 2009

Running Time: 109 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

RATING: R for language and some sexual content

Starring George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick, Jason Bateman, Tamala Jones, and Chris Lowell

Ryan Bingham is a corporate downsizing expert whose cherished life on the road is threatened just as he is on the cusp of reaching ten million frequent flyer miles and after he’s met the frequent-traveler woman of his dreams. (Paramount Pictures)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

The Hollywood Reporter Stephen Farber

It's rare for a movie to be at once so biting and so moving. If Ryan's future seems bleak, there's something exhilarating about a movie made with such clear-eyed intelligence.

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100

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Up in the Air is light and dark, hilarious and tragic, romantic and real. It's everything that Hollywood has forgotten how to do; we're blessed that Jason Reitman has remembered

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100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Up in the Air takes the trust people once had in their jobs and pulls out the rug. It is a film for this time.

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100

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Ryan may not be admirable, but Clooney makes him relatable. It's his deepest and nakedest performance.

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100

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Up in the Air is also optimistic about the perpetual themes that preoccupy so many movies that endure the test of time: Life is better with company. And everybody needs a co-pilot.

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100

San Francisco Chronicle Amy Biancolli

Crisply funny and fleetly paced, it's in its quiet way one of the saddest things in the theaters all year.

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100

USA Today Claudia Puig

Timeliness can be tricky to pull off convincingly in movies. It's tough to capture an era while it's still happening, yet Up in the Air does so brilliantly, with wit and humanity.

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100

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

A smart, alert, supremely entertaining movie.

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100

New York Post Lou Lumenick

One of the year's best films and so tapped into the zeitgeist that it's positively scary.

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100

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Up in the Air makes it look easy. Not just in its casual and apparently effortless excellence, but in its ability to blend entertainment and insight, comedy and poignancy, even drama and reality, things that are difficult by themselves but a whole lot harder in combination. This film does all that and never seems to break a sweat.

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100

Time Richard Corliss

Reitman's blend of comedy and drama, romance and social observation make Up in the Air the ideal movie --- and maybe even a cure -- for the Great Recession blues.

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100

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Joe Williams

Up in the Air may not end up as the best picture -- that will be decided by the Academy -- but it has landed in the middle of the discussion because it's laser-focused and right on time.

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100

Empire Ian Nathan

This is smart, silky, sensitive, and funny old-school movie magic.

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91

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

This is a movie about, among other things, pain, and it's made by someone who understands its expression.

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90

Newsweek David Ansen

There hasn't been a studio movie as unapologetically adult, sophisticated, and nuanced as Up in the Air in some time.

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90

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The best of Up in the Air--meaning most of it--is right up there with the fresh and sophisticated comedies of Hollywood's golden age.

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90

Variety Todd McCarthy

The timing in the Clooney-Farmiga scenes is like splendid tennis, with each player surprising the other with shots but keeping the rally going to breathtaking duration.

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90

New York Magazine David Edelstein

Up in the Air is poised to be a smash, and Clooney--slim, dark, perfectly tailored--glamorizes insincerity in a way that makes you want to go out and lie.

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88

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

One-word reaction: bravo.

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88

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Reitman brings the same mixture of comedy and drama to this movie that he brought to "Juno."

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83

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

For much of its going, Up in the Air moves with the same refreshing pace and attitude that marked Reitman’s “Thank You for Smoking” and “Juno” -- with the added frisson that the subject matter is so torn-from-the-headlines that it feels, in a good way, like reality TV.

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80

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Perhaps it's no surprise that Reitman has come out with a lovely Hollywood romance that floats buoyantly along on a sea of sadness.

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80

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

One of the pleasures of Up in the Air is that its actresses share the frame with Mr. Clooney as equals, not props

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80

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

The film is a hybrid. Its backdrop is despair, but the foreground action has the silvery zest of a comedy.

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80

Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky

If Steven Soderbergh taught Clooney how to act in "Out of Sight," then Reitman has taught him how to stop acting. This is the most vulnerable, the most playful, the most human performance of his career.

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78

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

The middle is terrific, especially in a lengthy, unassuming scene in which the three leads sit, sip drinks, and have a good chat: It marks one of the great celluloid pleasures of the year, so virtuosically written, performed, and filmed is it.

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75

Premiere Michael Mariani

A smart, brisk, but extremely thoughtful hybrid of star-vehicle and resonant depiction of right-now America.

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75

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

As for the implicit tragedy amidst the funny business, the swelling ranks of the unemployed, the movie has no solution but instead offers itself as implicit solace: Escape, ye wretches, into my clever humour and my nifty dialogue and my star's considerable charm.

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75

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Farmiga has never been better than she is here. Rarely does she get to do comedy, and she and Clooney give Up in the Air's sustained air of engaging disengagement a heartbeat as well as a romantic charge.

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75

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

At its best, Up in the Air invents new realms for old Hollywood sophistication.

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75

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

What Up In The Air lacks in surprises--apart from an elusive final scene--it compensates for by conveying the pleasures of living from landing to landing, and the terror of floating away.

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70

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Reitman deserves credit for going through with a bitterly ironic ending, but the movie is marred by its warm condescension toward flyover country.

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50

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Up in the Air goes down like a sedative. This is a movie that's easy to like--and to dislike as well.

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50

Slate Dana Stevens

Full of clever one-liners, winning performances, and wistful indie music. It's impossible not to like it, which is precisely what's so annoying about it.

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50

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Comes off not as topical but as opportunist. The picture is brushed with a fine glaze of slickness, a product sealed in a blister pack. It's like airplane air -- it has a packaged freshness that isn't really fresh at all.

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40

Time Out New York Keith Uhlich

Reitman, who also cowrote the screenplay, feels the constant need to “deepen” his characters, granting them wants and motivations--especially during the moralistic third act--that are totally alien to how they’re initially portrayed.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 6.7 (out of 10) based on 191 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Brian M. gave it a7:
Like most movies that receive loads of critical praise, Up in the Air doesn't live up to expectations. But if you can put aside the gushing reviews and view the movie with an open mind, what you'll find is a genuinely smart and entertaining comedy that deals with a familiar theme: that life is more fulfilling when you have people that you care about to share it with.

Kasey S. gave it a10:
To say this is the best movie of the year is to minimize what it is and what it does. There are so many good things about this movie that it is difficult to begin a list. The actors are phenomenal. The story is told in a unique (in today's world) voice that focuses on the effects that certain events have on the characters, not the other way around. It's hysterical, heartbreaking, and, for most professionals sitting in the audience, haunting. It's so frighteningly on point, that you will not shake the movie for months. Very powerful. Very good filmmaking.

Lord B gave it a5:
Overhyped and overrated. Ultimately a conservative, sententious piece, which is a pity as it didn't start out that way. Clooney's casting, which seemed masterful given his real life rejection of moral 'essentials' like marriage, in the end became jarringly contradictory. Imagine Charlie Sheen playing the Pope, or Amy Winehouse playing Anne Frank. The shallowist 'deep' film I've seen.

Eggy G gave it a10:
Perfect movie for this time of crisis. Amazingly portray in really brilliant way some of the hard issues in life. George Clooney was perfect...totally cool & charming but with depth. Great cast, music & directing. Just perfect!

m1 gave it a9:
For anyone who walked out around the 30 minute mark: you have just missed a wonderful cinematic achievement. George Clooney was TERRIFIC in the role (I don't know what performance you watched when critiquing him). How this only has a user average of 6.7 as of now is beyond me. AND yes, there WAS character development. The characters were built upon as the movie progressed. My favorite scene was toward the middle where the three stars enjoy a drink while bantering about love, and then crash a party. The end is arguably dispiriting. However, this is the best Academy Award contender since UP and a superior film to the entertaining but slightly overpraised Avatar.

Collin P gave it a9:
The genius of this film lies in its duality. Yes, George Clooney's character is self-centered, irresponsible and at times shallow. But he also makes many good points about how we don't all have to follow one singular path. He chooses to live a life different from the mainstream, and while most people (understandably) may think this is a shallow decision, he's proving that we shouldn't feel like there's only one way we can "live" this life here on earth. Not everyone wants to have kids, get married, buy a house, and live a sedentary, domesticated life. Yet, all the while throughout the film (though obviously a bit contrived) he comes to see that it's maybe he himself who is narrow-minded about the way one should live their life (and that a human connection is likely one of the most fulfilling things we can accomplish). That's why I loved this movie. It allows you to take many different messages from it, without shoving one down your throat, right down to the harshly ambiguous ending. Easily top 5 of the year.

Wayne L. gave it a4:
When the movie was over, I couldn't answer the question of why it was made.

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