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 ALERTFirst, 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