Up In The Air (2009) ****1/2

Any movie with an appearance of Lambert Airport AND Mike Shannon's is great in my book. The funny part about Up In The Air is that St. Louis is one of the nicer cities Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) visits as what I would call an anti-motivational speaker whose day job is traveling from city to city and informing people that they have been let go by companies to chicken shit to tell them.

Ryan's existence is a series of airports, hotel rooms, and rental cars that have turned him into the ultimate airport groupie. It may take you three hours. It takes him 30 minutes because he knows the ropes and loves it. He regrets having to go home. In his travels he meets Alex (Vera Farminga), a fellow traveler that seems to be cut from the same cloth as Ryan as they arrange "dates" against their flight plans. The problem arises when Ryan is called back to the home office in Omaha (no wonder he doesn't want to come home) and finds college grad Natalie (Anna Kendrick) has talked the boss (Jason Bateman, who is in everything now) into stepping into the future and having the men on the road fire people over T-1 lines. As the two clash over how their job should be performed, Natalie is sent on the road with Ryan to see how the job is done.

The plot almost sounds like a cliche but director Jason Reitman once again delivers a film that keeps you enthralled with Ryan's job and his odd embrace of the modern nomadic culture of over priced airports and beds that are your own for eight hours. The main trio of characters deliver performances that anchor the film into more than an old school guy teaching and youngster the ropes. It's much more than that. Clooney continues to be out generations Cary Grant, the movie star even on screen, yet he still gets beyond his Hollywood persona. Farminga opens up more in this role than the last time I saw her as the low key psychiatrist in The Departed. Finally, our third wheel Anna Kendrick proves that she will have a career after all this Twilight bullshit passes into the obscurity pond where films drown after their fans grow up.

Up In The Air has some laughs, but it's more of a character piece. Jason Reitman tends to make films and stories that are anchored in old school film jargon, yet they are shown with a new, modern perspective that is refreshing. This is one of the best of 2009.