Up in the Air is a 2009 American comedy-drama film directed by Jason Reitman and co-written by Reitman and Sheldon Turner. It is a film adaptation of the 2001 novel, Up in the Air, written by Walter Kirn. Plot summary George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a man who travels around the country to terminate corporate employees. Walter Kirn stated in the film's press notes: "Ryan is like a masseur who comes in and sort of rubs your shoulders while rolling your desk chair into the elevator." On occasion he delivers motivational speeches about the virtue of a relationship-free life. He relishes the comfort of being anonymous during his perpetual travels. He does not have a personal life and he numbs himself with sex, booze and drugs. His company chooses to ground him and keep him at the corporate headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska. According to Reitman, "The movie is about the examination of a philosophy—what if you decided to live hub to hub, with nothing, with nobody