Jason Reitman: The Grown-Up's Director

Published Nov. 25, 2009 at 8:46 p.m.
There hasn't been a studio movie as unapologetically adult, sophisticated, and nuanced as in some time. Reitman wrote the lead with George Clooney in mind, and there are echoes of the unmarried Clooney's life here. He's playing another urbane charmer, but there's a panic, a vulnerability, under the slick surface that Clooney has rarely shown. The rootless, no-strings life Bingham has constructed is imperiled when a young efficiency expert (Anna Kendrick) hired by Bingham's boss (Jason Bateman) concludes that the company can save time, money, and manpower by firing people remotely—via teleconferencing. Threatened with permanent grounding, Bingham takes the brash woman on the road to show her why the delicate but brutal job must be done in person. There's a second challenge to his beloved autonomy: Alex (Vera Farmiga), another corporate frequent flier with whom he begins a hot affair. Alex is his perfect counterpart ("Think of me as you, with a vagina," she quips), as wary of emotional baggage as he is, content with occasional romps in airport hotels when they can coordinate their flight patterns. Farmiga is a great partner for Clooney, her wry sophistication setting off silky sexual sparks against his jaunty seductiveness. But Alex gets further under Bingham's skin than he expects. Suddenly, he experiences need, and it's profoundly uncomfortable.

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