an alienated yet happy life or an attached but disappointed one?

to me, up in the air is a movie trying to be smart but not quite achieving it. I really like the idea of a man (with issues and probably a huge baggage!) traveling all the time (even if it is for boring business trips) and absolutely loving it. But the story overall, didn't work for me. I thought we had really good potentials for characters, but they were not well-drawn. I mean Ryan (george clooney) was ok, but alex(vera farmiga) was an absolute cliche from certain aspects. An all independent, spirited modern woman, every man's dream kind of girl turning out at a bar, suddenly slipping in your life and sticking there causing eventual emotional attachment was too much and predictably dull [*spoiler* even with its (unexpected yet unnecessary) twist in the end]. I personally think, the entire story was just not what it promised to be. 

However, it definitely had its moments that left me simply sighing. It struck a chord with me when Ryan talked about his love affair with airports. I always found these places strangely comfortable, I just breath better when I'm in an airport. And I loved Ryan's below rant about this "grey area" in our lives. 

It's a beautiful choreographed ballet of a bag handle collapsing, shoes coming off, a laptop going in a separate tray, wallet and watch sliding into a shoe, a boarding card sliding into a back pocket... both hands always moving, performing separate actions... it really is gorgeous.
All the things you probably hate about traveling -the recycled air. The artificial lighting. The digital juice dispensers and mini pizzas stacked to their heat lamps are the warm reminders that I am home.

here is another thing about getting older and/or defining life in terms of one's expectations. 

natalie:
when i was sixteen, I thought by twenty-three, I would be married, maybe have a kid..Corner office by day, entertaining at night. I was supposed to be driving a Grand Cherokee by now.
alex:
life can underwhelm you that way.
natalie:
now I have my sights on twenty-nine, because thirty is just way too... apocalyptic. I mean, where did you think, you'd be by...
Natalie catches herself having no idea how old Alex is.
Alex:
It doesn't work that way.
Ryan:
At a certain point, you stop with the deadlines.

yes it was meant to be funny and yes it was hilarious in the heat of the dialogue. Sometimes truth is just tragicomic. I exactly remember when I stopped with the deadlines! I was twenty-seven, with an unfinished M.A degree. I was thinking I'd thought by the time I was 27 I would be a P.hD student with a writing career going on for me. When I was 27, my friends were married with kids, some of them were successful academics, some working at places. I was just lost, going through some kind of "mid-life crisis", and I remember thinking "this cannot be the way it is. I will not live by the limits I myself put and make life even harder and depressing, I will stop with the deadlines". 

Now I'm thirty, still with an unfinished M.A. degree. But who cares, as long as there are other things.