“You may not always have your job, so make sure it’s not the only thing in your life”
– Eric D. Snider –
“Up in the Air”, directed by Jason Reitman, is an uplifting dramedy (which is a mixture of drama and comedy), but it also represents a corporate satire. It actually highlights the bitter society in America, and mocks the way corporate bosses manage employees’ dismissal; more accurately, it displays human fallout over job loss. This kind of movie is not common in the modern Hollywood production – the kind that does not insult our intelligence.
This movie, released in 2009, is very well-timed, as in these times of economic meltdown, one of the main problems in people’s lives is getting laid-off, not knowing what to do next to support their families. This story best displays the uncertainty of today and it carries a message about the value of human connections. However, some argue that it mistakes glibness for wit and charm for irreverence and that it, after a howling good start, runs out of fuel towards the end and is barely able to make it to the terminal with the message intact. Naturally, the opinions are divided.
The story starts with a scene of a man getting packed in a room, which looks like a genuine hotel suite, except it is actually his apartment, but devoid of any warmth. We get acquainted with Rhyan Bingham, the main character, who is taking us on a tour through the life he is leading. Bingham is a, what they call, a “career transition” counselor, a person who crisscrosses the country firing employees when their bosses cannot or will not do the dirty work themselves. He is supposed to, let us say, persuade people to see the positive aspects of career termination. Bingham lives neither home nor away, more like in the middle of “somewhere”. He spends more time in transition, at airports and hotels; than at home. Ryan likes the 322 days of the year he spends travelling, with only, what he describes as “43 miserable days at home”. The dream is to collect ten million frequent flyer miles and he is rapidly getting close to it.
The Essay on Paper About Life Time Mother Times
The Longman dictionary of American English defines life as, the force that enables us to continue. Life in my eyes is the interval of time between birth and death. Throughout life you will be placed in situations, and put to the test of time. There will be times when you are joyous, and times when you are sorrowful. This is the period of trial and tribulation. Face the fact life is hard. Being an ...
At a first glance, we get an impression that Bingam’s life is fulfilled by traveling and being the most successful person in his profession. He does not want a home, he does not want a wife. Bingham is completely satisfied with not being bound by marriage, not even relationships, while he is flying over the country, doing his job and also holding seminars about self-help lectures on how to get rid of the burden in your life. He is charming, yet manipulative, well-rehearsed and always in control, devoid of real empathy for his “victims”, focused on his own success. No wonder all the workers go quiet when he steps into a company; it automatically means someone is about to get fired.
Natalie Keener, an ambitious new colegue, arrives at Ryan’s company, after recently graduating at a business school. Natalie has an idea that people could more easily be fired via the Internet than in person. This idea sounds ruthless, but it would save the company millions of dollars. Ryan hates the idea, since it would jeopardize his work place, meaning that his way of life would have to end. Natalie is the kind of a person who is armed with theoretical knowledge but short on real-world experience, unlike Ryan. He believes that the personal touch is essential to his line of work, and they set off on the road so they can prove whether their ideas work.
However, when Rhyan meets Alex Goran, a female “fellow-shark”, in a hotel lobby, they start a physical, long-distance relationship in separate cities. This is where an emotional dillema emerges in his mind. Do this kind of life and emotional detachment really make him happy? He starts asking himself what is life really about and even brings his bachelor life in question, despite the fact that Alex appears to be a female version of himself, at least in terms of commitment. When he gets invited to his younger sister’s wedding and takes Alex with him, Ryan realizes how emotionally detached he was and comes to a conclusion he should change his way of life.
The Term Paper on The Ideas Concepts And Work Of James Dyson
Student Initiated Module (Elective) BA Hons Industrial Design University of Central Lancashire Assignment: 'The ideas, concepts, and work of James Dyson' By Robert James Fryer Contents Page Chapter 1 Introduction 3 Chapter 2 History and Education of James Dyson 4 Chapter 3 The Work of James Dyson 7 Chapter 4 Product Range 10 Chapter 5 New Innovations 16 Chapter 6 Research 20 Chapter 7 Conclusion ...
Just as he suppresses his fear of emotional attachment and figures he could have a bright future with Alex, he encounters a “minor” problem – he finds out that Alex is already married and a mother of two children, and figures out why she wanted a commitment-free relationship. A bitterly ironic ending brings an unexpecting turnover and leaves the viewers to bring their own conclusions.
What I did not like about the movie is one of the messages it conveys; it suggests that a person is not able of being truly happy without a family and that it is the only possible human connection. In a way, it creates an atmosphere in which single people should be feeling desperate and utterly miserable because of being single.
Despite this, I believe the movie trully serves its purpose. There are some ideas really worth thinking of.
Firstly, due to the rapid development of IT technologies, people have become increasingly dependent on it. They tend to confide all the work they can to computers and the Internet, and all that to cut costs and save money, whereas they forget the importance of human approach. Machines still cannot replace people in every aspect of life and they are not supposed to.
Secondly, some of the montage sequences in the movie show us real-life cases in which people react in various ways when they get laid-off. Some realize that there were other things they would rather do, instead of what they had been doing until then; but they did not have the courage to pursue them. Getting fired is an extremely bad circumstance in these uncertain times, but some tend to be extraordinarily unflexible, to an extent that they turn to the last cowardly resort – suicide. The probable reason for this is their shallowness and narrow-mindness; their inability to adapt and see beyond what they have been doing all their life.
Finally, the only thing that could help you cope with this uncertainty is to face it and embrace the thought that everything comes to an end sooner or later, so you have to make sure that you enjoy each and every little moment in your life. “Up in the Air” points out that we all live in the prisons we build for ouselves whether we realize the walls around us or not. We should be able to stop from time to time, and ask ourselves – where are we going? In the end, it is almost as if the whole world has lost itself in the pursuit of happiness.
The Essay on Internet Addiction People Online Health
Indications are that people using the Internet may be subject to a new illness in our society, Internet addiction. Is the Internet affecting your life in a negative way Do you spend more time on the Internet when you should be doing something else Internet surfing could become an addiction. I began to suspect that I had an Internet addiction problem when I would remain up until 3 A. M. to surf the ...
However, we should never give up on our dreams.
References
Ebert, R. 2009. _Up in the air_ [online]. Chicago: Chicago Sun-Times. Available from http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091202/REVIEWS/912029999 [Accessed 22 June 2010].
Lane, A., 2009. _Nowhere man_ [online]. New York: The New Yorker. Available from http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2009/12/07/091207crci_cinema_lane [Accessed 21 June 2010].
Sandhy, S. 2010. _Up in the air, review_ [online]. London: Telegraph. Available from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/6989746/Up-In-The-Air-review.html [Accessed 22 June 2010].