up in the air

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.

I've been wanting to watch this movie for a while now. Heard about it last year. Finally got to watch it today. Here's a little rundown of the synopsis from the handy Internet Movie Database.

Ryan Bingham's job is to fire people from theirs. The anguish, hostility, and despair of his "clients" has left him falsely compassionate, living out of a suitcase, and loving every second of it. When his boss hires arrogant young Natalie, she develops a method of video conferencing that will allow termination without ever leaving the office - essentially threatening the existence Ryan so cherishes. Determined to show the naive girl the error of her logic, Ryan takes her on one of his cross country firing expeditions, but as she starts to realize the disheartening realities of her profession, he begins to see the downfalls to his way of life

The movie is about the fear of commitment. Wanting to live in a life of loneliness and no real ties to anything. No family. No Friends. Nothing. Just yourself and the schedule you made for yourself to avoid ties to the world. Family are strangers. You don't get along with anyone else except for the co-workers for that day. I think everyone has been there before. Wanting to live by themselves. Not wanting anything else but the continuity of loneliness. Then. Something happens. We meet someone. We reconnect with a group of people. And we get out of that shell. Up In the Air looks at this. The pros and cons of being alone and being with people. Being happy and being depressed. Loosing something and then finding it.

I highly recommend this movie to everyone if you're feeling like one of those thinking flicks. It makes you ponder your life. Your priorities in life. If you're actually doing what you want to do.

I give it 8 out of 10 airplane peanut packets.