Up in the air - thought provoking movie

It has been a while I watched a good movie. You know those that make you want to own the DVD so you can go through all the favorite lines again.

The story revolves around Ryan Reitman, who is the corporate layoff officer, simply put, fires people for bosses who do not have the guts to do it themselves for a living.  First movie I saw that gave some insights on the recession story, not from economic or corporate point of view, but from us, the employed. The movie is not just on that, of course. The director has cleverly touched on many different aspects of life that many of us, the busy corporate executives would relate and empathize with. Natalie, the young fresh graduate we all used to be, proud, eager, driven and determine to continue the excellence they achieved from college to their work, life and marriage. Alex, the female corporate fox, probably was once a Natalie, toughened with life, empowered with wisdom, understood and played the game so well, separating her Up in the Air romance with Ryan and her real family life in Chicago expertly. Quite aptly, the Ryan Reitman but with the vagina.

But is Ryan really the cold, detached, unfeeling guy, trained from the thousands of layoff negotiations he has done? He understood the harshness of life, that how the house, kids, wives, family, attachments became immense burden when the company you had worked for your entire life forsakes you. The helplessness you feel when the backpack is full and you can't take a single step forward. He stops himself from developing any deep relationship with anyone which effectively makes him the 12 years old kid in love. Someone who is in the game who can't really play the game, unlike Alex.

I love how the director built the characters so well, so credible, so three dimensional, that we can easily identify with the choices and struggles that the three main leads made and went through.

The one thing that really stood out to me in the movie was the heart breaking scenes of the shocked about to be retrenched employees. It reminded me of my fears. Why I could not sleep well for a month after I sign the mortgage. Why I felt uneasy being in a company for too long. Why I still hope, how ever small the hope is, that one day I can be a self-employed. Why the dismay when I realised marriage life is not just love but endless bills, loans and commitment that will postpone financial independence indefinitely.

I used to be an insurance agent. Semi self employed. Everyday in the two years I was there, I told myself I am doing this because I can control my salary. Because i do not rely on the company for my livelihood. But because I do not have the flair and I crave for stability in the job, I went back to corporate world and did reasonably well. But however stable my current company is, I am worried that one day I will find myself jobless, not by choice. And by that time, I would be older and with a bigger paycheck expectation to meet my equally bigger loans. With the buoyant foreign talent populations, all younger, better educated with much smaller paycheck expectation, how would I be able to compete?

Have digressed a little but you get my point. ;p

Do go catch this excellent little movie. Besides, you get to see George Clooney and Vera Farmiga's ass. Woah, and that is one fine behind! :P