Up In The Air makes three winners in a row from Jason Reitman, who's developing a neat line in cleanly contemporary-feeling, pleasingly subversive mainstream films. It's a difficult film to describe - not quite a comedy, nor purely a piece of social criticism (or even simply observation), nor really a character piece as such, it has elements of all three, and they come together well. It's a very observant film, and has the ring of realism to it - everything is played straight, and there's a deliberate flattening of affect which stops short of itself being overtly unrealistic or anti-naturalistic. All up, quietly enjoyable but very much so.
(w/ M)
