Free Up In The Air Essay Example

The idea of an ideal lifestyle is very infectious. Everyone wants the lifestyle of the next rich person they see around them. People often envy the lifestyles of other people. They don’t think about the baggage that kind of lifestyle brings with all its perks. People who are often seen travelling in business class airlines, having a stay in a five star hotel and have a Mercedes or Bentley for their transportation have a lot of skeletons in their closet which other people don’t know. The movie ‘Up in the air’ is all about one same person whose job is filled with a lot of perks and luxuries of life, but the main character is so alone and miserable in his life. This paper is about the analysis of the movie ‘Up in the air’ with special focus on the lifestyle of the main character of the movie.
Clooney who plays the role of a senior executive in a sophisticated firm who are in the business of outsourcing. His job description includes roaming around the world and firing people. Many multinational companies have periodical budget cuts and transformation in the human resource department leading to a lot of ‘letting go’ of employees. It is obviously very difficult for them to let go the very employees who have been working under one roof for a long period of time. Honestly, busy companies like them don’t have time or resources to conduct such timid processes of firing people. It ruins the potential work environment and brings unnecessary negativity in the current employees, too. So, they outsource the job of firing employees to the firm which is professional and swift. Clooney’s character is the most senior master pioneer of the art of firing people. His job is cruel and ruthless. On the top of his skillset comes the ruthless pragmatism. He is able to do absolutely everything that is necessary. The movie is a bird’s view in the life of this person who is detached from the whole world. He doesn’t have attachment or longing for a family. He doesn’t have friend circle. In 365 days of a year, he spends almost 200 days in the air travelling. That is why the title of the movie ‘Up in the air’ is very apt for this movie.
He is so senior and experience in this line of work that he is called especially to give motivational speeches to the sales teams of various multinationals. On one side if we look closely, his lifestyle looks very attractive and amazingly adventurous. On the other hand, he is very lonely man with no family of future. He is basically emotionless. His job requires him to be heartless and cruel on people. He has to overlook the emotions of people when he fires them. So, the movie presents the viewers with this judgmental dilemma about the main character of the movie. In some ways it is very attractive and positive. In other ways it is very sad and boring.
However, twist comes in his life when the firm decides to go global. The transformation of being global brings a lot of difficulty in the life of Clooney’s character. He is forced to support the newcomer young girl who has this innovative idea of transforming Local into Global making it ‘GLOCAL’. She has the idea of using internet and video chatting facility to fire people from the head office without even having the personal contact with the person. This way she has the idea of cutting down the cost of travelling and expenses. Now, Clooney is very much accustomed to the life on the run. He cannot digest this idea of sitting in the office. He opposes the concept with extreme measures, but ultimately he is asked to let her shadow him for a while to learn the ABCs of the job.
He lets her shadow him and teaches her the truth and reality about the job. He explains her that the people who have worked so hard all their life and given so much to the company, requires the personal touch at the time of letting them go. Letting them go through the video chat is utterly unjust and insulting. With a few days of travelling with him she realizes the laws in the idea of hers. It was very difficult for her indeed to encompass the emotional turmoil that the employees go through when they are fired. However, she adopts very faster to the change in the professional environment. She eventually develops the due respect for the work that Clooney does.
In the amidst of all these, Clooney finds a female version of himself in the character of Vera Farmiga. She is having the same mentality and lifestyle as Clooney. Both are very similar in many ways. They connect very fast in their very first meeting. However, complications arise when Clooney develops emotional attachment for her and she hides that she was married. In the end, the heartless and emotionless Clooney cultivates emotional bonding with his sister on her marriage when he stops her husband from having cold feet about the wedding.
The message that this movie clearly gives is about the complications of being a workaholic. People who enjoys the life of work and don’t care about the personal and social life usually end up lonely and miserable. However, if one can find someone to connect with mutual understanding and affection, it can be legendary relationship. Everyone cannot balance the professional and personal life. If one leans toward any one side more, he can end up losing the other.
Here, the main character has of the movie has all the money in the world. He can travel the world continuously and enjoy the hospitality of the best hotels in the world. But is that enough? Is it the kind of lifestyle worth of sacrificing the love and warmth of a family? A person who lives the life of a workaholic is like a dinosaur with a definite extinction. There is no one to remember him once he gone out of this world. He has nobody to grow old with. He has no one to share his emotions and daily life with. He has to eat all his meals alone in a hotel. The initial view of this lifestyle is very attractive, but behind the scenes, it is very monotonous and lifeless.
No matter how much one can claim to be detached with the world, ultimately everyone has the innate need of the warmth of the relationship. That is why the society is the balance of professionalism and humanity. Without having the perfect balance between personal and professional life, one can never enjoy the life. The ups and downs of his life shows the purpose of the movie. A person who has no emotional attachment to anyone whatsoever suddenly finds himself in the emotional attachment with a woman of his taste and thinking. He finds it hurting to find out that she was married. This proves that even strong and pretending to be emotionless people also have a soft corner somewhere in their heart. All the people are hungry for love. All the other things like money, job, lifestyle, luxuries comes and goes. When it comes to love, rest of the things disappears. Everyone passively craves for love and affection, when they find a tiny hint of love around them, they fall for it very easily. There is no stronger force than love in this world.
In his motivational talks he tells the audience bout the backpack. He asks them to carry all the stuff that hey love in their life and put it in the backpack and then try to walk. It becomes very difficult and impractical to have all the baggage in the backpack and walk around very freely. His philosophy was all about leaving all the emotional baggage out of the professional matters. After the fortunate turn of event with his life and his love life, his philosophy changes.
Thus concluding the paper, it is very clear that the movie gives the message of having the perks of classy lifestyle with the consequences of being alone and lonely in the world. It is all about having a perfect partner or someone to share the life with. The balance between the professional life and the personal life can help a person make the most out of the life without the need of carrying the unnecessary baggage all the time.