A friend of mine who spends a lot of his time flying around the world on business told me that he found the ending of Up In The Air very downbeat.  He asked me how I would have ended the movie.  So fasten your seatbelt, clip up your table-top and enjoy the ride……..

Every protagonist has a goal (external) and a need (internal).  Ryan’s goal is to achieve 10 million miles.  His need – in my opinion – is emotional fulfilment.

A film generally has one of three endings:

1. Happy: protag achieves both their goal and need.
2. Tragic: protag loses both their goal and need.
3. Ironic: protag achieves their need, but loses their goal – or vice versa.

In Up In The Air, Ryan (George Clooney) achieves his goal (gets his 10 million miles) but it doesn’t fulfil him.  Through Alex (Vera Farmiga), he achieves his need (emotional fulfilment), but it’s temporary since she’s married.  However, she facilitates his character arc from emotionally-detached to emotionally-engaged.  His emotional engagement with Alex is clear when he shows up at her house.  He engages with Natalie by protecting her when the woman she fired commits suicide and also by writing her a glowing recommendation.  His character arc is further demonstrated when he assigns his flying miles to his sister and brother-in-law for a round-the-world trip instead of keeping them for himself.

During his public speeches, Ryan cites relationships as the heaviest thing we carry around in our ‘backpacks’.  He admits to Alex that he needs to empty his backpack in order to know what to put back in.  When he does empty it – on one level – he puts ‘relationships’ back in, which is illustrated by his emotional engagement with other characters.  But – on another level – he doesn’t put relationships in there, since he chooses to continue to fly around the world alone.

A ‘hero’s journey’ movie usually ends with the protag returning home after learning what he needed.  Now his old world is very different because he is seeing it through more educated eyes.  Ryan’s ‘home’ is established in the film as being ‘up in the air’.  It is Natalie – rather than Alex – who sets up the ending.  When she’s having dinner with Ryan earlier in the movie and challenging him on his assertion that “the miles are the goal”, she creates a vision: “If I had that many miles, I’d just show up at the airport, look up at one of those big destination boards, pick a place and go.”  This is exactly how the movie ends.   He’s flying – not to a hotel near an airport to fire people – but to reach a destination of his choice.  This is symbolic of his destination in life, his destiny.  It suggests that all opportunities – including love and a long-term relationship – are open to him.

I’d guess that Ryan’s final voiceover about his wingtip shining brighter than the stars and blessing the people below who have spouses and children is the director Jason Reitman’s effort to end on a hopeful note.  However, it doesn’t quite work for me since – for the last line/image to be powerful – it needs to directly answer the main question the entire movie is about.  It should also deliver significant meaning.  I think the main question in the movie is “can we be happy without emotional engagement/a relationship?”  Having glimpsed Ryan’s desire for love, I don’t think the final voiceover answers this.  However, Act 3 (the resolution) indicates that he’s now more open to committing to a relationship, which could ultimately lead to happiness.

So how would I have shaped the end of Up In The Air?  Well – as a disclaimer – I should say that Alex is one of my favourite female movie characters of all time.  However – if you put aside the fact that she’s sexy, funny, confident and great company – she’s actually a fraud (a lesser actress than Vera Farmiga may not have enticed the audience to like her so much [as an aside - one of the greatest challenges for a director is to get the audience to root for an unlikeable character]).  She betrays her family, lies to our hero, doesn’t show any integrity and probably has a man in every airport.  Our hero deserves better!  He deserves someone who values him, makes him feel special and gives him a return on emotional investment.

The movie sets up flying as Ryan’s escape from the real world and emotional engagement.  When he falls for Alex, he becomes open to emotional engagement.  So I would have stayed with the concept of ‘up in the air’ as his home, but introduced emotional engagement there.  He needs to meet a woman for whom flying is an integral and enjoyable part of her life, not an escape.  So I would have changed the scene where the (male) chief pilot presents Ryan with his membership card after he achieves 10 million miles.  Instead I would have created a character of a female pilot who flies because she loves it and because her life goal is to bring people safely from one country to another.  This would set her up as a person with values, driven by passion and unafraid of responsibility (which Ryan has avoided).  Perhaps she could be freshly single, having broken up with her boyfriend who hates flying.  She would present Ryan with his membership card – or alternatively, if he gave the points to his sister, she could commiserate with him for not reaching the 10 million mark by inviting him to fly in the cockpit (which I realise is not an option post 9/11 but film is a fantasy world).  Either way, this would suggest to the viewers that she is a much more suitable match for Ryan.  If she’s equally as sexy, funny and confident as Alex, this would satisfy the audience’s need for Ryan not to settle for less than he’s worth.  So my final image would be the female pilot and Ryan in the cockpit embarking on a long haul journey, enjoying each other’s company and generating chemistry, flying through the clouds into a world of unlimited possibilities.

Permit me to add an important footnote: I have huge admiration for the work of Jason Reitman, George Clooney and Vera Farmiga.  All 3 are very talented filmmakers who could tell a story in 10 or 20 different ways.  So this is not a criticism of their work, merely an alternative perspective which might appeal to some viewers…..and an ode to love on Valentine’s Day.

My friend – the one who flies a lot – loves my ending for this film (fortunately)!  It could be argued that viewers’ opinions are more important than the director’s since movies are created to be watched.  So how would you have shaped the ending?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.