Today, I’d like to talk to you about an old movie, up in the Air, which was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe.”Up in the Air” is a daily routine for Ryan, who spends more than 300 days a year traveling across the United States.
Ryan’s job is to provide professional layoff services to other companies, a position that came in handy during the recession of 2009.As a professional veteran, Ryan has developed a set of mature work habits.
His luggage is stowed and practical, ready to go.Every time he went through the airport security check, his movements were fluent and unbroken.Ryan is not only a VIP of hotels and car rental companies, but also the most loyal customer of American Airlines. He has fantasized for many times that when he has earned 10 million miles, the captain will personally present him with a lifetime supreme membership card.The year-round commute would be torture for most people, but it gave Ryan a special sense of belonging.
The plane cabin felt more like home to him than the bachelor pad he rented on the corporate campus.Unmarried and childless, Ryan resids the family life that most people choose, agonizes over what remains of his family ties, and dreading calls from his sister back home.His personal interactions are limited to nocturnal passions, and he has recently developed an emotionally free “business partnership” with a woman named Alex.This r-rated movie is a rite of passage for adults,The lifestyle led Ryan to develop a “backpack theory.
We add so much weight to the invisible backpack we carry on our shoulders every day — our car, our house, our furniture, etc. — that we become paralyzed and lose our ability to take risks.
But imagine that we can burn those burdens, and the next day it will be so much easier…It’s a cliche metaphor, but when combined with Ryan’s own experience, it becomes very convincing.He even had the conceit that no one lived more fully than he did.However, with the arrival of a new employee named Natalie, Ryan’s happy life begins to undergo a major collapse and reconstruction.Ivy League-educated Natalie is confident, sunny and driven. The key to her success was to come up with an “online downsizing” plan that, if promoted, would significantly reduce the company’s travel expenses.Ryan didn’t want to be chained to his office, glued to a computer, saying goodbye to a lifetime supreme membership.
But that’s only a small part of the story.
Lay-offs may seem routine, but they require a high level of emotional intelligence and respect, Ryan says.A rookie graduate like Natalie, with all her talk on paper, doesn’t see that.Seeing Ryan so determined, the boss simply asked him to act as a career mentor, taking Natalie on a business trip to experience the real world.After the plot, it is the veteran for the strength of the rookie.Natalie thought firing people was just a scripted procedure, not realizing that she was dealing with real people.Everyone’s immediate emotional reaction to the news of their layoff varies widely.Some covered their faces and cried, others pounded the table in anger, and others spoke of plans to kill themselves with extraordinary composure.
Within a short time, Natalie was outgunned.It’s hard to imagine how the scene would have ended without Ryan’s veteran backing.Ryan didn’t say it, but he felt elated because Natalie’s meltdown proved him right.It made him even more convinced that his lifestyle and “backpack theory” were perfectThe more people you connect with, the more emotional stress you’re carrying, the better to let go of unnecessary weight in the first place.But while Ryan is basking in the satisfaction of “teaching beginners how to be human,” Natalie tells him that his life, largely cut off from all human contact, is just an excuse for self-indulgence.Ryan had been oblivious, but had unwittingly moved in the opposite direction.
For the first time, he invited Alex back to his hometown to attend his sister’s wedding, and suddenly understood what it was like to be with someone “forever”.He wanted to act as a father on the wedding role to send younger sister married, but was politely refused by younger sister, just found himself because of leaving home for many years, had become the family “outsiders”.Ryan, who has never been married before, tries to convince his soon-to-be brother-in-law of his premarital stage fright by saying “life is better if you have a partner” — without realizing it, he’s also convincing himself.When Ryan took the stage again to extol the “backpack theory”, he realized that the argument for dropping all the baggage had failed him.
All he could think about was running to Alex.
However, when he finally gets up the courage to pursue a normal life, he discovers that Alex is actually married, and she has seen him as a relief from the beginning.At this moment, Ryan realizes that he used to casually say that “everyone dies alone”, but in fact he is the one who fears loneliness the most.In order not to let himself lose, he cut off the possibility of possession from the beginning.After a few minutes, Ryan was caught off guard by the moment he had always dreamed of: 10 million miles, and the captain arrived with his lifetime supreme membership card.He had fantasized about this moment many times, but when it came, his heart was not as happy as he had expected.At the end of the film, Ryan turns over the miles to his sister and brother-in-law to fulfill their dream of traveling the world, and he returns to life “up in the air.”
The most interesting tidbit about the film today is its star, George Clooney.When the film was shot, he was still Hollywood’s most eligible bachelor. He was handsome, rich, had a string of girlfriends, insisted on never marrying, and Ryan’s persona was a clone of his own.Within a few years, however, he became the actor husband of an international human rights lawyer.Of course, the main attraction of Up in the Air is its memorable plot, with many segments of dialogue cleverly designed to keep people watching and revisiting.
For example, When Ryan and Natalie are downsizing, they are confronted by an angry uncle, who plays the script by the book against Natalie.
Ryan changed his mind and convinced the other party in a few wordsYour resume says you minored in French cooking, and you ended up working for this company while you were happily making money at a western restaurant while most students were working in fast-food restaurants.They offered you $27,000 a year, and you gave up your dream? When are you going to stop doing what you really love?It wasn’t Ryan’s chicken soup about “dreams” that prompted the change in deke’s attitude. It was his words that made him realize that people tend to follow the path of the majority and forget that a single approach doesn’t make everyone happy.
What we really fear is not unemployment, but the uncertainty and unknowns that come with it.There is also a scene in which Natalie meets Alex, Ryan’s “business partner”, after being dumped by her boyfriend.Two workplace women on the standard of choice launched a discussion.Young Natalie has a set of detailed requirements for her partner, down to skin color, education, height, hobbies, what car to drive…Alex’s requirements for a partner were the most specific she could think of — male, healthy, not bald and earning more than herself — without any of those criteria.There is no distinction between the two women’s standards, but the differences between them vividly illustrate the complexity of human nature.With the increase of experience, everyone’s most important things are constantly changing.That’s exactly what Ryan, a self-proclaimed winner in life, misses.
He thought he had chosen a lifestyle far beyond most, but he had never really lived.Ryan’s eventual return to “up in the air” was seen by many as a tragic story about the loss of his true love.But it seemed to me that this was his rebirth after the collapse.He has tried different ways of life, and he knows all the results, but he is determined to continue his choice, believing that he can bring hope to people who are at the bottom of their career.He understands loneliness, but also dares to embrace it, which is the real life fully.