Character Analysis
(Avoiding Spoilers)
Living… up in the air. Ryan Bingham’s job requires him to spend most of his life traveling on a plane, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. As he explains, “Last year, I spent 322 days on the road, which means I had to spend 43 miserable days at home.” Airport bars and lightweight luggage are staples in Ryan’s life, and he prefers the comfort of a good hotel room to his own bedroom.
Profession… corporate downsizing expert for the Career Transitions Corporation. Basically, Ryan fires people for a living so that gutless employers don’t have to. Ryan has the charm, tact, and ability not to get personally involved that are required for the job.
Interests… delivering inspiring talks. Ryan’s winning smile and natural charisma make him a great motivational speaker. His favorite speech, “What’s in Your Backpack?”, encourages others to unburden themselves from relationships in order to live a life of independence.
Relationship Status… single and mingling. Ryan frequently has a string of flings. Constant travel means that he gets acquainted with all sorts of women and luckily never has to settle down. His latest lover is the fellow frequent flier, Alex Goran. Though against his usual instinct, he might actually be falling for Alex for real.
Challenge… earning 10 million frequent flier miles. To Ryan, this goal is much more than just a number. Achieving it will grant him many perks – lifetime executive status, a meeting with the chief pilot, and his name on the side of a plane! Thanks to careful management of his mileage account, Ryan isn’t too far from the target. Let other men worry about finding true love or building a family; Ryan is shooting to be king of the air travelers.
Personality… winsome and independent. With his good looks and affable personality, Ryan could attract almost any woman of his choice. However, he is also a total commitment-phobe: “Make no mistake, moving is living.” His knack for detaching himself from situations, though, comes in handy for his job. Ryan has to deal with the tears, pleas, and angry tantrums of the recently unemployed without compromising his own impassiveness towards their situation. An overly emotional corporate downsizer is a bad corporate downsizer. Of course, being perpetually emotionally disengaged isn't necessarily the path to a full and satisfying life, either.
Get to Know him in...
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George Clooney plays the dry cynical character of Ryan Bingham, an executive who specializes in "downsizing". Ryan lives out of his suitcase, traveling the country for the sole purpose terminating unwanted employees day after day. Just as Ryan is about to reach his life-long goal of the ten million mile frequent flyer mark some major changes come his way. Changes that threaten to crack the cold heartless exterior that is Ryan Bingham.
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Ryan Bingham’s job as a Career Transition Counselor–he fires people–has kept him airborne for years. Although he has come to despise his line of work, he has come to love the culture of what he calls “Airworld,” finding contentment within pressurized cabins, anonymous hotel rooms, and a wardrobe of wrinkle-free slacks. With a letter of resignation sitting on his boss’s desk, and the hope of a job with a mysterious consulting firm, Ryan Bingham is agonizingly close to his ultimate goal, his Holy Grail: one million frequent flier miles. But before he achieves this long-desired freedom, conditions begin to deteriorate.
With perception, wit, and wisdom, Up in the Air combines brilliant social observation with an acute sense of the psychic costs of our rootless existence, and confirms Walter Kirn as one of the most savvy chroniclers of American life.
