“I fell in love with a character," says director Jason Reitman, explaining the genesis of his new Paramount film Up in the Air, debuting in theatres on Dec. 4. “Ryan Bingham fires people for a living, and characters who do unthinkable things for a living excite me.”

Hanging his story on the bones of a tricky character is nothing new for Reitman. His debut feature, Thank You for Smoking, featured a shameless lobbyist for Big Tobacco, while sophomore effort Juno subverted expectations of how a pregnant teen would navigate her dilemma, becoming a megahit that grossed over $230 million worldwide.

Now Up in the Air—arguably the one winner out of the Toronto Film Festival and an Oscar front-runner—brings a new topicality to the mix. It's not only wickedly funny and peopled by recognizable characters, but with the pink-slipping of America, this tale of a corporate downsizer feels ripped from the morning headlines.

Reitman views his hatchet man Ryan as a current twist on the classic American salesman, selling dreams to folks devastated by the sudden loss of their careers, as he flies around the country. "Instead of going door-to-door, Ryan goes hub-to-hub," says the 31-year-old Reitman, who has striking good looks, the pallor of a Talmud scholar, and self-confidence to burn. "But if you're going to make a movie about a guy who fires people for a living,” Reitman adds, “he better be a darn charming actor. And there really isn't anyone better at that than George Clooney. The role was tailor-made made for him and it was probably one of the most exciting moments of my life when he finished reading it and said to me, 'Jason, it's great.'”

Living in airports, planes, and hotels with only a carry-on, Ryan also embodies a familiar male type: the commitment-phobe who avoids romantic baggage. When he picks up luscious business traveler Alex (Vera Farmiga) in a VIP lounge, he believes he's found a perfect match who shares his taste for no-strings affairs. (A priceless comic set-piece stages their mutual seduction by credit card and elite status perks.) But his airborne freedom gets threatened when smug B-school grad Natalie (Anna Kendrick) convinces Ryan's boss it's more efficient to dump workers via video conferencing. And when Ryan surprises himself (if not us) by falling for Alex, he discovers an unexpected need for attachment.

"This is my most original screenplay," says Reitman, who loosely adapted Walter Kirn's 2001 novel of the same name and shares script credit with Sheldon Turner. While keeping the book's central character and his occupation, he added such crucial figures as Alex, Ryan's love interest, as well as efficiency ace Natalie, Ryan's nemesis. And if Kirn's novel is "about a man losing himself, this film is about a man finding himself." Reitman also made the decidedly non-commercial choice to withhold a clear resolution. Instead, he points out, there's an epiphany. "It almost doesn't matter where Ryan goes from here. He has the information. He's undoubtedly changed. He can go back to the life he was living but not with the same perspective."

Reitman also considers Up in the Air his most personal film. Its screwball-style dialogue actually sounds like Reitman himself, who admits to being a "wise-ass" and likes whip-smart characters able to articulate their thoughts. The credit card scene was a snap to write, he says, because and he and his wife once flirted over the same thing. As in his previous work, Up in the Air also explores a compelling question. "In my first film, my questions were political. The second had to do with growing up. This one asks the biggest question of all: How do you spend your life—with people or alone? And as I made this movie, it confirmed the idea that I felt burning inside—that life is better with company, even if you believe you don't need anybody.”

As it happened, over the six years it took to write the screenplay, Reitman's own life changed. Like his anti-hero, he'd begun to consider airplanes, airports and hotels a virtual home. Then Reitman fell in love and married (writer/actress Michele Lee), and became a father. "In the course of writing the screenplay, Ryan Bingham the character and I discovered what was really important in life." When asked if there's been an Alex in his own life, Reitman replies, "I'm very happily married. And even if there had been, I don't think this would be the time to reveal it."



With its feel for the zeitgeist, Up in the Air also captures an America in thrall to its BlackBerry's, iPhones, texting and video chatting. These gizmos, Reitman asserts, convey a false sense of connection. "We don't talk any more. In fact, we're as disconnected as we've ever been. There's no sense of community or responsibility to be in a relationship. That's why so many of the conversations in this movie happen over video texting and phone calls"—and let's not forget a kiss-off e-mail that reads "Don't want to c u anymore."

Not one to tell people how they should live, Reitman admits to being equally addicted to texting and Twittering, adding, "I'm fortunate I get to make movies and work through some of these questions."

Up in the Air has left some viewers with questions of their own. Though reviews from Telluride and Toronto ranged from positive to rapturous, this critic took issue with a crucial twist in the third act, when the heroine displays the sort of emotional detachment that's usually the province of men. Reitman, however, sees no contradiction. "We're living in a very unique moment when women have been dealt a tricky hand. They're coming off the heels of the feminist movement and have more opportunity than ever before. But with that comes a lot of confusion about their role in society. Today there exist modern businesswomen exactly like my character, but who have not been portrayed onscreen. That's part of why I wrote this role. In a strange way, [Alex] is the man and Ryan is the woman in this relationship."

Even so, onscreen the character's 180-degree flip strains credibility. "That's good!" Reitman replies. "I don't want my characters to fit in easy boxes." All three of his films, he points out, contain a variety of characters who challenge the idea of how we should think of them. "That's what draws me to them. I like that it makes you a little uncomfortable when you see Alex acting the way she does. The idea is to catch you off-guard, to show you a different idea of the modern working woman. She's flirting with another life the way we presume men do all the time."

And what was it like to work with George Clooney? "He's about as good an actor as exists right now," says Reitman, lauding Clooney's ability to switch during a day's shooting from flip and charming to a man devastated by getting his world snatched away. "In this movie George has shown a level of vulnerability that most movie stars can't even touch. In the third act when he gets socked in the stomach, he never cries, you just look in his eyes and feel it."
Yet in making his ax-man so likeable, doesn't Reitman court the accusation that he's giving him and his odious job a free pass? One has only to compare similar corporate footmen in Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story, who are portrayed as America's executioners. Further clouding the issue, Up in the Air includes painful footage of real people who were recently fired.

But Reitman doesn't see Up in the Air as a political film—even though when one character refuses to go on whacking workers, viewers feel tempted to applaud. "I actually don't think there's anything wrong with that job, just as I don’t think there's anything wrong with the job of head lobbyist for Big Tobacco," says the filmmaker. "The world needs all types. Sometimes people need to get fired—my wife recently was. Yes, it's heartbreaking that this many people are losing their jobs, but that doesn't make it wrong."

If Reitman, a Canadian, nails the zeitgeist in America, it's partly because he grew up and went to college here. From childhood on, he was something of a screen animal, using movie theatres with triple bills as daycare, as he puts it. "I've always been ahead of the curve, always started things very young."

An English major in college, he ran a desk-calendar business, using the money to make his first short film—then left school to make commercials. He's had the opportunity to be on sets his whole life, thanks to his director father, Ivan Reitman of Ghostbusters fame. As for the impeccable comic timing in Up in the Air, "I don't think you can learn it," Reitman says. "I think I was born with a sense of timing, tone, rhythm—important for comedy.”

Mostly, though, it's the countless hours working in the editing room—where "movies really come together and the magic is made"—that Reitman credits with teaching him the craft. "Watching [my father] be ruthless about his material made me ruthless about my own. I cut anything that doesn't work without a second thought, even if it's a great scene"—an approach much in evidence in Up in the Air, which is as lean and mean as Ryan's corporation. "I watch movies all the time and think, ‘This could go, and that’… I sometimes think movies have forgotten how to move."

Up in the Air not only moves, it's likely to take off big-time and land on the number-three spot in Reitman's trifecta of winners. The filmmaker attributes his success to date to the fact that his movies emerge from a deep inner wellspring. During the five years he tried to launch Thank You for Smoking, he declined offers to make bad movies which didn't speak to him. "It was very tempting to be on a set and get paid to direct movies. That was the dream. And to turn down those movies and wait it out was very hard."

Yet he considers those five years he waited the most important thing he's done for his career. "Because by starting with Smoking, it's allowed me to continue making movies that feel personal to me. I can't help but feel that if you try to make a personal movie every time, the probability that you'll make a good film is higher than if you just try to make a profitable one."