How much does your life weigh?

'All the things you probably hate about travelling -the recycled air, the artificial lighting, the digital juice dispensers, the cheap sushi- are warm reminders that I'm home.'

In 2009, I sat within an cinema audience for a screening of Jason Reitman's third feature film 'Up in the air', up until this point I had been impressed by 'Thank you for smoking' and had understood and appreciated 'Juno's success but I had no idea that the film I was about to witness, would still have me thinking about it now.

The film was enjoyed by the crowd, laughing in the places where the film wanted you to laugh but what made me feel inferior to the rest was when the film ended and we all applauded, it somehow felt polite as opposed to a general love for what they had just watched. I included a large WHHOOPP which I think the film deserved. I remember someone slightly turning their head, almost as if they were thinking, 'what's wrong with you, you liked that film? I couldn't stop thinking about it...but why?

Was it the false pretences in which the film seemed like it was going to turn out in the end but didn't, this ain't no romantic comedy. Was it the world in which our protagonist was in, a man who fires people for a living, mirroring the current recession of the new millennium? Was it the fact that people fired in the film did actually lose their jobs in real life, the life imitating art factor with Ryan Bingham being played by George Clooney, the sharp comedy of the script, the gentle and subtly played out drama of a man learning the beauty of having a 'co-pilot' in life.

Ryan Bingham is a man who learns that the life he has been rejecting for years is actually much better than the life he has been living confidently in. He continues in his job to no satisfaction, his family regard him as a ghost, the woman he finally falls for, already has been living what he realises he now wants, so what has he got left...?

Ryan brings another future to Natalie Keener with his enthusiastic reference...with the final scene looming, where is our scene informing the audience confidently that Ryan will be okay, smile at a woman on the plane before he starts talking to her, using the Hollywood technique we'll lived with for years, that idea 'that everything will be alright in the end.'

Well...we do get it, Ryan stands with destination endless, acknowledges the audience with a sadness in his face, with a voice-over describing whilst happy families will carry on tonight, the stars will shine before disappearing and the final light of hope...will be his wing-tip flying over. Dead. Silence. The audience is left with clouds...Ryan is alone...

Why did I like this film? The man from the cinema and most of the audience who heard that loud whoop, seems like they thought the same or maybe they were too stunned or taken back by what they had just seen? I love it because I can't believe I see it...

Ryan Bingham learns but he doesn't change...he is the same man at the beginning and the end, only left with more pain...

In a great scene where he learns who he actually is, where he's from, what is at the centre of his life, the pilot asks him whilst they sit side by side on the plane 'where you from?' Ryan replies...

'I'm from here.'

Ryan Bingham: 'How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second that you're carrying a backpack. I want you to pack it with all the stuff that you have in your life... you start with the little things. The shelves, the drawers, the knickknacks, then you start adding larger stuff. Clothes, tabletop appliances, lamps, your TV... the backpack should be getting pretty heavy now. You go bigger. Your couch, your car, your home... I want you to stuff it all into that backpack. Now I want you to fill it with people. Start with casual acquaintances, friends of friends, folks around the office... and then you move into the people you trust with your most intimate secrets. Your brothers, your sisters, your children, your parents and finally your husband, your wife, your boyfriend, your girlfriend. You get them into that backpack, feel the weight of that bag. Make no mistake your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. All those negotiations and arguments and secrets, the compromises. The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living. Some animals were meant to carry each other to live symbiotically over a lifetime. Star crossed lovers, monogamous swans. We are not swans. We are sharks.'