Danny McBride – Movie Musings

George Clooney about to head Up in the Air in Reitman’s brilliant bitter-sweet comedy

Director: Jason Reitman

Cast: George Clooney (Ryan Bingham), Anna Kendrick (Natalie Keener), Vera Farmiga (Alex Goran), Jason Bateman (Craig Gregory), Amy Morton (Kara Bingham), Melanie Lynskey (Julie Bingham), Danny McBride (Jim Miller), Zach Galifianakis (Steve), JK Simmons (Bob), Sam Elliott (Marnard Finch), Tamala Jones (Karen Barnes)

One of the worst days in your life can be the day you lose your job. The uncertainty, the insecurity, the sudden feeling of no longer knowing what the future holds – it hurts. Imagine, however, if you were the other side of the equation. What if it was your job to actually tell other people they no longer had a job?

Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) works for a Human Resources consultancy company who specialises in firing people for companies. Ryan spends his life flying from company to company across America, fires thousands of people a year, and gives motivational speeches promoting his ideology of no relationships with people or possessions. His relationships are on-the-road flirtations, in particular with one of his female counterparts Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga). However, Ryan’s world is facing threat: his company has hired young, ambitious Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick), and wants to introduce a video conferencing system to conduct firings remotely. Ryan argues Natalie knows nothing about the ‘human element’ of his job, and she joins him on the road to find out more.

Up in the Air is a marvellous, perfectly formed, small-scale film: thought-provoking, endearing, with plenty of laughs as well as an air of bittersweet sadness. It manages to focus on all its issues and themes equally without short-changing any of them, and leaves you feeling rewarded and rich at its end. There are moments in there that will make you cry, make you laugh but also make you a little angry. Reitman never insults your intelligence though: he presents things as they are and trusts you to make the judgements you want to make. It’s quite simply wonderful, a little masterpiece of cinema.

It’s also a wonderful film of its time, which very deliberately doesn’t shy away from the brutality of the economic climate so much of its plot focuses on. Reitman used a series of talking heads of real people who really had gone through meetings exactly like this, and their emotional, very real reactions to losing their jobs gives the picture a profound depth.

Up in the Air doesn’t take the easy route of condemning Ryan’s work. Sure our sympathies are naturally with those losing their jobs, but Ryan isn’t a heartless shark. He genuinely feels he is there to support people: his principal objection to the video conferencing is it removes the human element from an extremely difficult moment in people’s lives. He has platitudes, and smooth professionalism, but also a brilliant understanding of people and he gets so close to appearing that he cares deeply about people’s lives (even if he can’t remember them days later) it’s as near as damn it to counting. Watch the scene where he fires JK Simmons’ character – he’s read Simmons’ CV, gently questions why Simmons is working anyway at a company he hates and encourages him to follow his dream of becoming a chef. Sure it’s about defusing a situation – but to Ryan it’s also about helping a person see possible future steps, if only for a moment.

It’s such a brilliant snapshot of how Ryan can analyse in seconds what might encourage a person to find greater depth in their lives, that you forget for a moment that Ryan prides himself on having nothing. His flat is a facelessly cold place, which looks less welcoming (and cheaper and colder) than the hotel rooms he stays in. He’s never happier than when in a VIP lounge. He proudly lives out of a suitcase perfectly sized to avoid checking bags. His motivational career stresses the aim of getting everything that matters to you in the world into a backpack. He has no friends, he’s a stranger to his family, no fixed abode (he spends over 320 days a year travelling). He shares a few painful minutes with people and then never sees them again.

This might just be the part Clooney was born to play: his handsome, slightly smug grin, his studied chuckles, his slight air of blankness behind his good looks are perfect for Ryan’s surface, but Clooney’s great gift as an actor is the emotional weight and depth he is able to show beneath this veneer as soon as it is scratched. He’s a marvellous physical actor – watch his growing flirtatious ease with Alex turn into a comfy affection. He understands the psychology of Ryan completely and never judges him: he can see why Ryan does what he does, and why it works for him. His performance gives Ryan the dignity of his convictions, doesn’t present with any inch of satire Ryan’s feeling that his job is partly about helping people. Even the slightest touch of distance from the part would have shattered the film’s delicate equilibrium – Clooney doesn’t do it for a second.

Of course, drama means Ryan is thrown into situations that challenge this way of thinking, not least his relationship with Alex (essentially the female version of himself). Vera Farmiga is outstanding as a woman with a very male outlook on the world. Perhaps because they share so much, their relationship grows from a sexually charged flirtation (a brilliantly shot and edited sequence in a VIP lounge) into one that increasingly becomes more and more tender. The film dangles before us and Ryan the option for a new way of life – but it doesn’t lie to us about the nature of either of these people. The relationship doesn’t develop the way we expect – and in fact it becomes a commentary in its own way on the very same future prospects Ryan spends his life selling the people he fires, that despair is a gateway to future opportunity.

Anna Kendrick’s Natalie comes at the world of firing from our ruthless modern age – how can we do this faster, quicker and cheaper? Let’s put together a framework for all conversations, let’s do it remotely, let’s use as many buzzwords and platitudes as we can. While Ryan’s work (to him) is all about not forgetting you need to guide an actual human being through without them getting angry or upset, for Anna it’s a simple progression from A to B. Kendrick’s wonderful performance is all about unpeeling these layers. As she finds out first-hand what the job involves, so we discover she is a far more sensitive, “normal” person than we expect, someone who can’t see the logic behind Ryan’s world-view.

And the film asks Ryan to look at the logic of this world view as well. Everything he expresses at the start of the film comes under fire. Change threatens to make him as redundant as the people he fires. His growing closeness to Alex challenge his ideas about commitment (“we fall in love with pricks and are then surprised when they are pricks” Alex comments, something the film explores late on). The impending marriage of his sister – and the realisation of the complete lack of presence he has in his family’s lives – makes him start to think about the strength of his rootless existence.

But the film doesn’t hammer these points home, it juggles them all perfectly within its framework of looking at corporate America today. In a world where people are increasingly becoming faceless numbers on a spreadsheet, is it surprising so many need a faceless man to do the firing for them? Travel has made the world smaller, but also our lives smaller – like Ryan we can be everywhere and nowhere. Up in the Air is a sad and tender film, but one which leaves a kernel of hope somewhere – there are moments that make you think there are opportunities for change and rebirth. Sure it might be pulling the same trick Ryan does, but if so that’s smart – and shows what a good trick it is. Up in the Air is a hell of a movie, and Reitman is one hell of a director.

The xenomorph rises again, in prequel Alien: Covenant

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Michael Fassbender (David/Walter), Katherine Waterston (Daniels), Billy Crudup (Oram), Danny McBride (Tennessee), Demián Bichir (Lope), Carmen Ejogo (Karine), Amy Seimetz (Faris), Callie Hernandez (Upworth), Guy Pearce (Peter Weyland), Noomi Rapace (Elizabeth Shaw), James Franco (Jacob)

The Alien franchise is a series I’ve always had a lot of time for. Perhaps I just enjoy the carnage and blood letting of these movies, but at their best there is a sinister poetry behind the pure destructiveness of this rampaging beast, with a perfect mix of haunting nihilism and stirring action. In 2012, Scott returned to the franchise to explore its roots. His prequel film, Prometheus, had a mixed reception (and it’s a film I’ve found weaker with repeated viewings) but it still had that mixture of nihilistic poetry and gore. So where does Alien: Covenant fall?

Set 10 years after Prometheus, a solar flare hits the colony ship Covenant. To repair the damage, the ship’s android Walter (Michael Fassbender) wakens the crew, although the captain (an unbilled James Franco) is killed by a malfunction. Command passes to Oram (Billy Crudup), although many of the crew look to the captain’s wife Daniels (Katherine Waterston) as their moral leader. After the damage is repaired, the crew investigate a signal from an abandoned world, where they find the marooned android David (Fassbender again) and a planet with a terrible virus, that infects its hosts to create brutal Xenomorph monsters. But is all as it seems?

Alien: Covenant is a mixed bag. It has a haunting and unsettling tone and gives us plenty of aliens in all their various forms. Many of the sequences of alien attacks are exciting. It’s trying to build a mythology around the creation of the aliens, and tie that in with a thematic exploration of our needs to create and destroy. It wants to explore the potential dangers of artificial life, and how it could judge us and find us wanting. At the same time, it’s a flawed and rather predictable film, which never really surprises you. It might give you some things to think about – but it won’t provoke your interest enough to make you really think about them for long after the credits roll.

Its main weakness is in its large cast. Most of the characters are referred to throughout by non-descript surnames, hammering home their lack of individuality. The film is so resolutely invested in the establishment of its mythology, it has no time to build characters or a story around the crew. They are little more than ciphers, plot tools to deliver specific points rather than for us to relate to them, or feel concern for their fate. Even Waterston’s Daniels, nominally our surrogate character, feels distanced and undefined. Like the rest of the cast, she suppresses the loss of a loved one (there are at least three bereaved partners in this film) with a suddenness that speaks less of her professionalism and more of the film’s shark-like need to always moving forward.

The one exception to the blandness is Fassbender’s dual role as androids David and Walter. It’s an actor’s bread and butter to play different roles, so we shouldn’t be surprised that a great actor like Fassbender executes it here with such skill. But he clearly distinguishes both the loyal, straightforward Walter and the darkly oblique David, and manages to craft the two most impressive performances in the film. This also gives Fassbender several chances to act oddly with himself, including a scene where David (rather suggestively) teaches Walter to play a pipe (it’s all about the fingering) and even a creepily possessive kiss scene between the two androids.

It helps that the film positions David as a protagonist-antagonist, and spends time exploring his fractured psyche (because it is central to the creation of the aliens, the film’s main interest). From its dark prologue, which shows David awkwardly questioning his nature with his creator (a swaggering cameo from Guy Pearce), David carries much of the film thematic interest. He is a creation of mankind, who believes he has surpassed his creators. Learning that Walter, a second generation, has been programmed to be less ‘human’ in his emotional capability as David, only confirms his belief that he is perfect. David is fuelled by a homicidal rage towards his creators, matched with an insane fixation on his own perfection.

The film wheels out a host of literary big guns to suggest a richness and depth to its exploration of these themes, from Milton to both Shelleys, but these points are really window dressing, as David is really closer in spirit to a Mengele crossed with a mad scientist from an old Hollywood B-movie. Despite this though, Fassbender’s David feels like a fully-rounded, absorbing character. His ‘Walter’ performance is equally good – gentler, compassionate, less grandstanding but quietly engaging.

Alien: Covenant is a film that aims high and wants to add some intellectual heft to its “slasher” roots. I think it’s probably a film that “hangs out” with ideas rather than enters into a proper conversation with them, but at least it’s aiming for thematic depth and richness, even if it often misses. I’m not sure it carries the sense of wonder and awe, and near-religious parallels, Prometheus (a deeply flawed, but more haunting film than this) managed. But it wants to make us question our place in the universe, and how our blind overconfidence could one day doom us. These ideas may just be window dressing to the blood and guts that the film delights in, but it at least shows that Scott is trying to make something a little deeper, and trying to make points about human nature.

It may be this focus on philosophical musing and the mythology of the alien’s development, distracted the film-makers from creating a plot to wrap around all this. The characters actions are too are often determined by the requirements of the plot, rather than logic or characterisation. So many dumb decisions are made, it stretches credibility: deflecting on a whim to a strange planet, charging around this alien world with careless abandon, following a clearly demented android you don’t trust into a room full of alien eggs – the plot requires each of the characters to perform various acts of stupidity in order for it to get anywhere.

The plot is also a hybrid that remixes beats from the previous films. No death (and there are loads of them) carries any surprise or shock value, and the alien itself (impressively filmed as the action is) behaves pretty much as you would expect. The familiarity of the events also makes the characters feel (to the audience) even more stupid and careless. There is excitement, but the film never really gets you to the edge of your seat – with its familiar action, and bland characters most of whom are little more than alien-fodder, you just never feel a tension or investment in their fates.

I wanted to like Alien: Covenant more than I actually did – but the truth is that it’s a film that lets itself down. There are moments of awe and wonder in there. It has a very good villain, whose motives and reasoning are interesting and thought-provoking. It has a terrific pair of performances by Michael Fassbender. But it’s also got too much flatness – plot and characters seem rushed and thinly sketched out. It’s clear where Scott’s and the writers’ focus was – and it means chunks of this movie just glide past the eyes and ears. Not the worst Alien film by a longshot – but still someway off the greatness of the first two films.