This is one scary movie

Jason Reitman’s third directorial effort (after Thank you for Smoking and my ever-favourite Juno) establishes him as one of Hollywood’s talents and also creates another nepotism case (his father is director Ivan Reitman, of Ghostbusters and Dave fame, who also serves as producer for this movie). He tells the story of Ryan Bingham (George Clooney), a successful corporate downizer and a motivational speaker – who motivates people to live their life independent from relationships, a lifestyle he enjoys to practice. Willingly alienated, Ryan’s biggest ambition is to reach his 10,000,000 air miles goal. In one of his stops he meets Alex (Vera Farmiga) an equally cynical and attractive woman, with whom he creates a “no strings attached” relationship, something – initally – ideal for him.

Ryan’s world starts to fall apart when the keen, freshly Ivy League graduate, Natalie (Anna Kendrick is a revelation here) is hired in the same company as him and with a breakthrough proposal she threatens to demolish Ryan’s lifestyle for good.

This is a kind of prophetical film – the screenplay is adapted by a 2001 novel by Walter Kim, and was written in the same year by Sheldon Turner and was purchased by DreamWorks in 2003. Then the Reitmans found out about it, which resulted to its 2009 release by Paramount, right in the feast of world financial crisis.

No one can deny that Clooney is one of the finest American actors – or, better, artists. His big range, combined with his dashing looks, allow him to portray his character honestly and gives us the whole emotional journey from a man who voluntarily isolates himself to one who is in need of human contact and back. Ryan is definitely an unlikable character, an yet we root for him. He makes scene where he reaches his initial goal is equally funny, thought-provoking and sad and at the end, he seems to be less than the douche I thought him to be.

Vera Farmiga, his female counterpart, does more that the job of keeping herself against a strong lead. She manages to deliver a performance that makes the audience both love and hate her, creates the essential anti-heroine who could be a man’s rising – and ends up becoming his demise.

The revelation of the film, though, is a certain Kendrick. In the likes of Annette Bening, she brings a sassy and breezy Natalie, full of the – sometimes unreal – ambitions and insecurities of a girl of her age and education. You enjoy seeing her rising against her “mentor” (the scenes they share are some of the best of the movie) as well as falling apart.

Some of the best acting, though, occurs by the fired people. Reitman infamously used people that have been fired sometime in their life in order to deliver a more realistic result. The scenes where Natalie and Ryan fire Bob (J.K. Simmons) and where Natalie fires via videocall Mr. Samuels (Steve Eastin) are among the most powerful of the film.

The opening scene of the movie, combined with the song, is an ironic wink to what America portrays. It gets you to the point right before the actual movie begins. The irony of the song about a country that seemingly offers everything, and yet it failed its people so badly.

The choice of the colours of the movie for the most part – blue and greyish – reflect pretty much Ryan’s life and psychism. Only in few scenes, like Ryan and Alex’s meeting and at the family gathering, the atmosphere becomes warmer, and you suspect that the protagonist’s soul gets a similar effect.

As with Juno, the direction is yet again fresh and contemporary and the dialogue is natural and brisk and there’s where lies a lot of the movie’s charm. As mentioned above, Reitman does not only rely on his leads, but to the full cast (which includes the talents of Jason Bateman, Danny McBride, Zach Galifianakis, and Melanie Lynskey) to deliver a strong result.

Finally, the image Reitman creates for America is far from idyllic. Even though Natalie is apparently chasing her piece of the American dream, only to realise that this is hardly doable, she does it through the non-ideal way. There are no pretty, lush valleys or beautiful, luxurious houses. There are cold hotel rooms, even colder, wintery towns and empty offices, ready to get rid of even more souls. As the last two years pass by it becomes even more painful to watch this movie, in a way. At its first viewing, it was a movie about someone’s isolation. As our world progresses into a kind of demise, it becomes, “a scary movie”. Scary because people like Ryan Bingham exist and do the job he does. As someone in the movie said, it makes me wonder how such people can sleep at night. But every single time I watch the film the same question comes up: How do you fire someone like Ryan Bingham?