FILM I DRAMA

‘Up In The Air’ is My Comfort Movie

After losing my job and my girlfriend, I had to re-watch it.

The first time I watched Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air, I found it reassuring and comforting. I loved it back and forth because it made me feel better about myself. It justified my lifestyle at the time, and showed me that you don’t need to have close relationships with your family or anyone for that matter to feel happy. You can just live tens of thousands of miles up in the air without having the smallest problem in your life.

The sky will always welcome you, and you can fulfill your dreams in a job that you love to do. Even if that happens to be firing people and deprive them of their livelihood and existence.

“Photos are for people who can’t remember. Drink some ginkgo and let the photos burn. In fact, let everything burn and imagine waking up tomorrow with nothing. It’s kind of exhilarating, isn’t it?” — Ryan Bingham, Up in the Air

Up in the Air is about a handsome guy Ryan Bingham (George Clooney in a suitable role), who fires people for a living. He flies around the country to do the dirty work for big corporate guys who are too cowards to lay off their own employees. The movie portrays a deflating economy and its repercussions, but more importantly, it depicts a man who managed to detach himself from society.

Ryan Bingham is alienated and lonely, living in a self-created world where he seems to have a great time.

In 2009, I lived back home in Hungary, and I managed to effortlessly estrange myself from my family. I considered my closest friends, who I used to hang out with all the time, as my “family.” Until one day, everything I believed about human relationships to be true fell apart, and suddenly I had no one around me apart from my slight depression and loneliness.

The second time I watched it, I restarted my life and was already living in London. It gained a new meaning for me; either the movie’s message changed, or I did.

First, I felt a little uncomfortable about why I fancied Ryan’s lifestyle. But then again, it looked charming, exciting, and independent at first. Up in the air, everything’s quiet. You can shut out everyone and completely focus on yourself. It’s also lonely up there surrounded by strangers, airplane food, and endless contemplations going on inside your head.

At the beginning of the film, Ryan is on the phone with his sister, who tells him that the road sounds isolated. He replies, surprised by the comment, that he’s surrounded by people. He’s right apart from the fact that being amongst people and actually have human connections with them aren’t the same thing.

I often feel like Ryan. Not guilty about having an independent life away from my family, but rather comfortable and free. However, every once in a while, unwanted thoughts pop up in my head asking, “what the hell are you doing?” But it’s okay, I chose to live this way. I chose solitude instead of a constant companion, and I never regretted it because it fits my introvert personality. And it’s natural to miss family sometimes.

However, there is a factor that significantly changed over the years. I developed a closed, loving, and caring relationship with my parents. Anything happens to me, they’re the first one to know. If I lose my job or get dumped by a woman I love, I’ll tell them without hesitation. After all, they’re the best divorced couple I know.

Officially I haven’t lost my job yet, but it will happen in the next month, my boss told me so. I told them right away. My girlfriend broke up with me a week ago, and they were there to console me. I don’t need them to be here physically because they are with me mentally and emotionally. Sometimes a message, a phone call is enough to set me straight and help me let off some steam.

I watched Up in the Air for the umpteenth time because Ryan Bingham’s story always reminds me to act before it’s too late. To stop myself from becoming a parenthesis, an escape in someone’s life. Because you see, by the end of the movie, he realizes that human connections aren’t interchangeable with a comfortable and casual lifestyle. They might give you headaches, stress, and burdens to bear, but they also reward you with joy, caring, and love. To have those amazing feelings, it’s worth letting your life twirl upside down at times.

Ryan learns that in the hard way. He fell in love with a philosophy that won’t make him happy for the long term. When he recognizes that, the world he built so carefully collapses around him. He got so comfortable being solo that he can’t find an escape out of it.

I’m not there yet, and hopefully never will be, but I’m aware of the choices and life-changing decisions waiting for me down the road. One day I will have to make them if I don’t want to end up like Ryan; trapped in his own world, alone and unhappy.

It’s a weird choice to make Up in the Air my comfort movie. It might sound a little sad and depressing but trust me it isn’t. It has a universal message about the existential crisis and low points in life when someone has to face unexpected adversity.

In those moments, when the world suddenly starts shaking around us, we feel lost, puzzled, and hopeless. That’s when we most need our loved ones in life to help us realize we aren’t alone. We have a family to go home to, a wife that comforts us, and kids to admire us even when we feel like the biggest failures in the world.

I’m lucky enough to have my parents and a few close friends in my life to rely on when I hit rock bottom. I always try to make sure to appreciate and love them before it’s too late. I know it’s beautiful up in the air, but only if you have someone to share it with.