George Clooney and Brad Pitt in Venice to promote Burn After Reading. The hat’s overkill, Brad.
Variety reports that George Clooney is in talks to star in Jason Reitman’s adaptation of Walter Kirn’s novel Up in the Air. Reitman will direct his script.
The book is about Ryan Bingham, a “career transition counselor,” who spends his life flying from city to city and firing people. He spends his entire life in airports, airplanes, hotels, and office campuses. Bingham’s obsessed with racking up his millionth airline pilot before he leaves his current company for another job, or is fired himself.
After reading a few reviews of the book, I wonder about Clooney in this role. It seems like Bingham is supposed to be a soulless corporate drone, representing soulless corporate America, someone who’s life is built on the empty trappings of the mid-level businessman and who spends his life commenting dispassionately on it all–airport lounges, coffee makers, hotel rooms. Clooney has played this type before, the middle-aged guy caught on a career treadmill, but those characters realize the emptiness of it all and they’re tortured by it. Does Clooney have too much soul for this part, or is Reitman’s adaptation allowing for that? Or will Clooney pull off the moral bankruptcy of the character?
(note: in case I haven’t made this clear, this is just my interpretation of the main character from reading reviews of the book; I haven’t actually read it and could be completely wrong.)
Clooney is currently in Venice doing publicity for the Coens’ latest effort, Burn After Reading. So far the reviews have been terrible. Hey, the odds of churning out back to back Oscar winners is pretty slim; the Coens are allowed a slipup.
