March 8, 2010

Oscar gives pink slip to 'Up in the Air'

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We all know the real purpose of the Academy Awards show last night: To discuss who was wearing whom and dish endlessly on what on earth Actress X was thinking when she chose Gown Y. But allow me to digress for a moment from the fashionista post-mortem to discuss how disappointed I was to see not a single gold statuette go to one of the most poignant films about the economic zeitgeist: "Up in the Air."

With six Oscar nominations--for best picture, director, actor, supporting actress (twice) and adapted screenplay--"Up in the Air" seemed a lock to get at least some formal recognition from the academy. In particular, the smart writing captured the disconnectedness and uncertainty many job seekers feel about their lives today since the economic security blanket has been pulled out from under them.

No offense to Kathryn Bigelow and her deserved triumphs with her outstanding film "The Hurt Locker," but her depiction of the harrowing world of a bomb-disposal unit in war-torn Baghdad feels at least three years behind the times when compared with Jason Reitman's sardonic story about the cold calculus of recession-era downsizing. My guess is that "Up in the Air," with its scenes of heartbreaking layoffs brought about by smugly efficient corporate number-crunchers, has made a longer-lasting visceral connection with more viewers than any of the tense bomb-defusing scenes did in "The Hurt Locker."

In "Up in the Air," George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a slick hired gun who does the dirty work of laying off people for corporations that are too chicken to do it themselves. Flying through an endless series of third-tier cities to politely but firmly hand out pink slips, Bingham uses his elite travel privileges keep him insulated from the misery wrought by his odious profession. But his untethered fantasy world finally runs aground when his employer plans to automate the business of corporate downsizing, which threatens to--irony of ironies--put the corporate assassin out of a job.

From the opening moments, it's clear that Reitman wanted the audience to connect not only with Bingham but also to the forgotten multitudes who have been left reeling by the Great Recession. At several points, Reitman lingers on documentary-style interviews with non-actors who had been recently laid off in real life. With unnerving directness, the interviewees display a range of raw emotions, from sadness, to rage, to disbelief. One particularly haunting montage shows Clooney and co-star Anna Kendrick moving through a series of decimated offices, like suit-wearing angels of death, and ends with a chilling image of Kendrick sitting dumbstruck in an office packed with office chairs that she has just helped empty.

"Up in the Air" is one of those rare studio projects that manages to not only make us laugh but also mirror the nervous, apprehensive mood of our times. Although it was made just before the 2008 global economic meltdown, the film conveys the fear, outrage and uncertainty many out-of-work people are still experiencing today.

When we look back 20 years from now, "Up in the Air" probably will be used as an indicator of what life was like during the "awful aughts." It's a shame the academy didn't have the foresight to recognize the film's worth with its highest honor.

Randy Woods writes about job-search tools, networking techniques and other tips to help you land your dream job.

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