Emerging from the Toronto Film Festival with tons of positive buzz, Jason Reitman's Up in the Air gets early Oscar top contender predictions from the current Entertainment Weekly for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actress. They are probably correct. Highly entertaining and topical (given the current economy), the film's downbeat conclusion resonates and causes viewers to ponder the meaning of their own lives.

Playing corporate downsizing expert Ryan Bingham, George Clooney is the surest best for an Oscar nomination. It's a part that Reitman adapted from Walter Kim's novel with Clooney specifically in mind, and it's impossible to visualize anyone who could deliver the goods as effectively. Bingham's smug persona is detached and completely in control as he arrogantly glides through airport security in record time (eg. never get in line behind a family with children; instead select Asian businessmen, who efficiently pack lightly and wear slip off shoes). Bingham also proudly delivers his panned professional self help program that preaches the gospel of independence that extends to personal relationships (and the pointlessness of commitment), using the “empty backpack” as his idyllic metaphor.

The airports of the world are his home—his comfort zone. He lives out of his suitcase and absolutely loves it! His vision of Hell involves spending a day off in his Omaha home town port. He describes his job as making “limbo tolerable” without realizing that he has cocooned himself into perpetual limbo.

Bingham's comfortable nomadic routine is threatened when perky young new hire Natalie (Anna Kendrick from Rocket Science) proposes systematic video conferencing termination notices so the company can save valuable time and financial resources. Armed with savvy social networking skills and many years using the Internet, Natalie is poised to bring Web 2.0 technology to the firm. As the company's most proficient jet-setting efficiency expert, Bingham naturally resists … and is soon teamed with Natalie to show her the hands on human side of the business—how he can walk the fine line of demonstrating detached compassion when people's jobs are suddenly yanked out from them.

Kendrick's role could have turned into a stereotypical one note performance, especially considering Clooney's dominating presence. But Kendrick exhibits good range and underscores her facade with visible vulnerability that allows her to share the screen effectively with Clooney. Also serving ably to balance Clooney's lead is romantic interest Alex (Vera Farmiga from The Departed), who shares Bingham's insular nomadic lifestyle.

The ensemble acting between these three works smoothly, and the dialog and editing move the narrative along a well paced 109 minute route, but some of the most memorable scenes are actually composed and shot in documentary style. Filmed on location during a rough Recession in St. Louis and Detroit, Reitman called for people who had recently lost their jobs to come in to recreate their firing experience (or to perform what they wish they had done). The resulting neo-realistic cameos are nearly as memorable as the film's jarring conclusion, as Bingham tries to figure out just what the hell he wants out of Life.