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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board    Reviews    Script Reviews  ›  Up In The Air Moderators: bert
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Trojan
Posted: December 7th, 2009, 9:46am Report to Moderator
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Has anybody read the script Up In The Air by Jason Reitman? It seems to be one of the movies people are talking about as a contender for Best Film at the Oscars.

Despite all the hype, I found the script a little underwhelming. It is definitely a character-driven story as there is little happening in the way of plot. The protag, Ryan Bingham, is not particularly likeable and has no real goals to help drive the story forward. His job is to fire people from theirs, and his aim is to accumulate as many frequent flier points as possible. Even as the story progresses his goals are all self-serving and shallow.

So when he has this big moment of realisation near the end it feels forced and artificial. There is also a 'twist' that I saw coming a mile away and was very predictable.

It's not a bad script by any means, but I did have to force myself to finish it. For a movie that is being touted as Best Film Contender, I guess I expected more though. George Clooney is playing the lead so I imagine he will bring some much-needed charm to the character.

Would be curious to hear what anybody else who has read it thought of it.

Cheers,
Tim.
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ricketybridge
Posted: February 1st, 2010, 8:26pm Report to Moderator
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I didn't read it--I saw it--but my thoughts were identical to yours.  Completely overrated.  I can't say I saw the twist coming, but by the time it came, I didn't even care.  I see your point about his goals being "self-serving and shallow", but I think even worse, they were vague and at times completely invisible.  I found myself going, where the hell is this GOING?

I found the younger girl INCREDIBLY annoying--the way she was written already made me want to slap her, and the actress made her that much more intolerable.


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ABennettWriter
Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 2:57am Report to Moderator
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I thought this movie was excellent and George's best work. The movie is a nicely balanced character study of a man who knows exactly what he wants - as many frequent flyer miles as he can. By the time he earns those points, though, his need has changed from a "loving the single life" bachelor to a man who needs a woman. Not just any woman, but a married woman.

The scene where Ryan is awarded his card for the 10 millionth mile is tragic, in the sense that it's worthless. What he thought he had, he realized he had nothing. No life. No family.

It wasn't the best movie ever made, but I genuinely enjoyed every aspect of it. I don't understand the "cancer" scene, though. It should've been cut.
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Aurelien81
Posted: January 28th, 2011, 1:38am Report to Moderator
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I have seen the movie and read the script. Both are outstanding and it is one of a few scripts I read that looked very closed to the movie.

It is indeed a fully character driven movie and there is no real plot. You can define guidelines but it is Ryan's learning curve that drives everything.

SPOILER ALERT

First, yes Ryan is very much shallow indeed and that is the main point of the movie: he has nothing, he fires people for a living and he collects something that doesn't exist, that isn't toucheable, points, frequent flyer's points: he's up in the air, he has nothing, his life is on pause.

To know him is to fly with him but the very representation of flying is that nothing happens (except when you've got mother f*****g snakes on the mother f*****g plane). What do we do when we fly: we read, we watch TV, we eat and we sleep. Nothing major happens and that is what most of his life is: nothingness. On top of that, he give talks on how to escape commitment.

Now you have a deeply complicated character because he is against commitment but he is himself commited to reach a goal that only 6 people in the world have reached. He also praises loyalty (regarding his cards) when he meets his female couterpart. It means that what he WANTS is to reach a goal through comitment but what he NEEDS is to re-kindle with human beings in a close relationship.

He short dialogue with his sister shows that they didn't have a very happy childhood in the family and that is probably what broke it all for him and he started to flew with his own wings, not caring about others. Firing people for a living also forces you to cut off your feelings for people to be able to survice such a job. But he is passionate, he shows it when he talks about airports, those are awesome to him. He keeps bringing his attention to things that pass by.

Now, by the time we get to the end of the movie, he finds that he cares and he finds that caring for someone who doesn't return that love is heartbraking. He has reached his goal but his NEED has taken over what he WANTS and his goal falls into pieces. Back at his office, he is also given a chance to go back where he belongs, up in the iar, but he doesn't seem to thrilled, because there again, what he WANTS has changed. He transfers what he worked so hard to get, his miles, to his sister so she can travel the world with her husband. Finally, when he goes back to the airport, he makes a new choice, achoice choice that was given to him by the young woman he was taking care of, to look at the board and pick a destination. He lets go of the past (his suitcase) and makes a decision for his own life: while everyone is with the people they love, those little lights brighter than the rest, his light with be the wing tip passing by. The only reason why a wing tip passes by, it is when the plane changes direction, meaning that his life changes direction too.

The reason why it is Oscar material, I think (not sure), is because depicts a exactly what you will see in all epic movies, changes, questions about life and love, but it does so in the confinment of human life. A character learning curve doesn't have to put the whole world's survival at stake to make it worthy of consideration. Ryan is just as lost as everyone else, but in the secrecy of his life, in the closed space of a plane, in his heart, he changed and that is a stroy worth telling for its humility and its sincerity.

I think that to understand this movie even better, it is important to listen to the song that was written for it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHgD2C3H1XA
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conwall
Posted: January 29th, 2011, 11:17am Report to Moderator
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I read the script the first then saw the movie.  I too was amazed how closely they resembled each other.  They even had an establishment shot of a hotel with a busted lawn sprinkler.

This was my favorite line from the script though (from memory):  After sex, they're laying in bed like murder victims.  

The whole script crackled with punchy little lines like this, that made it very enjoyable to read.  Also made me negatively assess the dryness of my writing.  You could tell it was written by a professional at the top of his game.  

Movie?  Pretty forgettable.  But as an example of how to write better, a must-read.


Your comments welcome on:  GOD GETS FIRED.  Comedy, 89 pages.  Humans are such a failure that God loses his job.  Worse, his ex-wife is appointed to oversee Earth’s destruction.  Luckily, God has a plan…but it’s not about saving us.  It’s about winning her back.

http://www.simplyscripts.com/scripts/GodGetsFired.pdf
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Manowar
Posted: June 6th, 2013, 9:18am Report to Moderator
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Please don't kill me because this is an older thread, but I had to chime in:

I like to put a few months between the time I watch a movie and the time I read the script, regardless which I do first. With "Up" I saw the movie first and was blown away. It reminded me of certain Italian flicks where there was little action but a whole lot of character growth with comedic elements. It pulled off the toughest of challenges in any type of story: made a shallow protagonist seem likeable, and provided for a huge character arc. The opening, with his monologue at the convention grabbed me right away as it was something I'd never thought of before. His toughness in performing his job was ruthless but I could understand it, and I could understand when he feared he would be replaced by a new system... irony building.

SPOILER ALERT
The way this supposedly callous character guided the young buck (buck-ess) who was looking to eliminate him, and even comforted her when her own life was falling apart was very heart-warming and made me like him even more. Talk about great character development. On top of that, the way he did his sister's bidding in taking photos at his various layovers was priceless. I thought for sure he would end up with the younger girl looking to eliminate him. But that obvious turn was overthrown by a realtionship with a female version of Clooney's character--one more ruthless than he was because she took the role usually attributed to the male lead--she was just in it for the sex. When the reveal was made that she was married and George was crushed (in a great actor moment) I was shocked. Did not see it coming. Made me feel for the MC even more. I can't remember a movie where a callous MC was presented initially and I liked him for his humor and felt for him for the job he did that others couldn't do, though that job still irked me, yet because of his personality and comedy I liked this guy, like him even more after he helped the person trying to replace him, and really felt for him and rooted for him after he was crushed by the married woman--he had reached a point of changing his charcter by then and was crushed by that decision. Brilliant plotting!

END OF SPOILER ALERT

Later, when I read the script, even though I still remembered what would happen, I was still captivated. I don't have the balls to start a script like this, with a long monologue, but it shows that if it's interesting (which it was!) readers will keep on reading. I agree with other posters that this is one of those scripts in which the movie followed it closely. Thank God for that. The pacing was amazing (a great study in steady development), the character development, phenomenal. And it introduced me to the use of "reveal". I use it differently in my scripts, but the way the writer uses the word "reveal" in his action blocks was a major epiphany for me in my writing.

Best screenplay I've read in years. Should be studied in every film school in America.


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