Reitman Soars With 'Up In The Air'

What do you get when you combine a writer and director with a great reputation for sharp satire, comedy and drama, with a successful leading man who can command any genre?

The answer is "Up in the Air," both literally and figuratively, and that's the way Jason Reitman prefers his new film starring George Clooney to be. After all, why pigeonhold something that has elements of comedy, drama, romance and heartbreak, and slices of real life in between?

"I aspire to make films that cannot be placed in a genre," said Reitman in a recent @ The Movies interview. "Comedy and drama are only techniques that I want to use to move the audience. The films that I admire the most are the ones that can't be put into a category."

Nominated for six Oscars, including best actor for Clooney, best supporting actresses for Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick, best adapted screenplay, best director and best film, "Up in the Air" follows the travels of Ryan Bingham, a hatchet-man from a firm who flies around the country to fire employees for assorted corporations, and then help them transition into unemployment and examine new career paths.

But thanks to the smarts of Natalie Keener (Kendrick), an over-achieving college grad who thinks the company can be much more financially efficient by doing the firing online, Ryan finds himself grounded from the jet set and lost both personally and professionally.

Any movie is a tough sell in Hollywood -- especially ones that deal with a touchy subject matter, like, unemployment in a midst of the Great Recession (in addition to the narrative, Reitman intersperses interviews with real unemployed people throughout the film). And while Reitman would like to think that his success with the satire "Thank You for Smoking" and the Oscar nominations of "Juno" helped fuel "Up in the Air," he's not afraid to admit that it was the attachment of a certain Hollywood heavyweight that got the project off the ground.

"Honestly, when you have George Clooney, everything becomes a little easier," Reitman deadpanned.

Thankfully, with a Hollywood superstar or not, Reitman said that it helped that he's been down this road before.

"It's not the first time I've tackled movies with tricky subjects, like lobbyists for Big Tobacco and pregnant teenage girls," Reitman said. "The main thing is that I make that subject accessible to an audience, and that's what I did with 'Up in the Air.'"

Of course, Reitman knows the key to the accessibility is an everyman actor with undeniable charisma and charm and he gets that in spades with Clooney as his protagonist. But in an industry where the likes of Clooney are in such high demand, Reitman said he didn't write the script for Clooney specifically, but for a number of different actors that happened to include the "Syriana" Oscar winner.

"I wrote the movie with 80 actors in mind. I find that to be the only way to capture somebody's voice," Reitman explained. "Now, I didn't assume that George Clooney was going to play Ryan -- the guy gets 20 screenplays a day -- but it was certainly in his form. There are undeniable connections between him and this part."

As a bonus, Reitman said he benefited from Clooney's experience not as an actor alone, but as the actor and director behind the Oscar-nominated docudrama "Good Night, and Good Luck."

"He was a wonderful collaborator in many ways. For one, he's an actor who thinks like a director," Reitman said. "So, he trusted me as a director and always tried to make sure that I got what I needed on a daily basis not only from him, but to get the right performances from others. When he's on set, he just sets a tone. He's friendly and it helps set a lovely tone."

While Clooney's name attracts big attention, Reitman's biggest collaborator without question on "Up in the Air" is his fellow producer on the film, who also happens to be the 32-year-old filmmaker's dad: famed writer-director Ivan Reitman.

Jason Reitman said that there's really no major change in the family dynamic when he and Ivan Reitman are making a film together, mainly because they've been collaborators their whole lives.

"My father has looked at my work my whole life," said the filmmaker of the elder Reitman, one of the creative forces behind such comedy classics as "Animal House," "Ghostbusters," "Meatballs" and "Stripes." "I used him to help me with my homework in school; he watched my first short film and read my first screenplay. My father and I talk every day. We're extraordinarily close."

And, yes, like fathers and son do, the two have disagreements on occasion. But as it relates to things like "Up in the Air," disagreements only come as helpful actions to get the film to a better place.

"Did we butt heads a couple of times making the film? Of course," Jason Reitman said with a laugh. "If I want a producer I can trust, who can I trust more than my father?"

But let's say for a second that the younger Reitman is really bad on the set. Does dad, then, have the power to send his son to his trailer for a time out?

"I'm not going to get into that," Reitman said, laughing out loud. "Please don't put me into that situation."