[Author's Note: Although this review ran in the 12/9 print edition of Creative Loafing, I have held posting it until now. After numerous date-changes, Up In The Air opens everywhere today. Please consider seeing it, especially if the Avatar screening you're trying to get into is sold out upon your arrival at the multiplex.]
After watching Jason Reitman’s wonderful Up In The Air, I kept trying to put a label on the movie. Is UITA the first post-post-9/11 movie? Or maybe it’s a charming end-cap on the less-than-sweet aughts decade? Then again, perhaps it’s the first real film of the economically depressed Age of Obama? Any way you tag it, UITA is just terrific, a perceptive look at how we live now with a winning script, keen direction and three pitch-perfect performances — all of which seem destined for Oscar.
This article appears in Dec 16-22, 2009.