Up in the Air

* Steve: Who the fuck are you, man?
   Bingham: Excellent question. Who the fuck am I?


* Bingham: How much does your life weigh?
   Imagine for a second that you're carrying a backpack. I want you to feel the straps on your shoulders. Feel them?
   Now I want you to pack it with all the stuff that you have in your life.
   You start with the little things, the things on shelves and in drawers, the knickknacks, the collectibles. Feel the weight as that adds up.
   Then you start adding larger stuff, clothes, tabletop appliances, lamps, linens, your TV. The backpack should be getting pretty heavy now. And you go bigger. Your couch, bed, your kitchen table. Stuff it all in there. Your car, get it in there. Your home, whether it's a studio apartment or a 2-bedroom house, I want you to stuff it all into that backpack.
   Now try to walk. It's kind of hard, isn't it?
   This is what we do to ourselves on a daily basis. We weigh ourselves down until we can't even move. And make no mistake, moving is living.
   Now, I'm gonna set that backpack on fire. What do you want to take out of it? Photos? Photos are for people who can't remember. Drink some ginkgo and let the photos burn. In fact, let everything burn and imagine waking up tomorrow with nothing. It's kind of exhilarating, isn't it?
   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
   Now, this is gonna be a little difficult, so stay with me. You have a new backpack. Only this time, 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 that you trust with your most intimate secrets. Your cousins, your aunts, your uncles, your brothers, your sisters, your parents. And finally your husband, your wife, your boyfriend or your girlfriend. You get them into that backpack.
   Don't worry. I'm not gonna ask you to light it on fire.
   Feel the weight of that bag. Make no mistake, your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. Do you feel the straps cutting into your shoulders? All those negotiations and arguments and secrets and compromises...
   You don't need to carry all that weight. Why don't you set that bag down? Some animals were meant to carry each other, to live symbiotically for a lifetime. Star-crossed lovers, monogamous swans.
   We are not those animals. The slower we move, the faster we die. We are not swans. We're sharks.

---

* Stewardess: Do you want the cancer?
   Bingham: The what?
   Stewardess: Do you want the cancer?
   Bingham: The cancer?
   Stewardess: The can, sir?


* Bingham: There's nothing cheap about loyalty.


* Natalie Keener: Don't take this personally, Mr. Bingham.
   Bingham: Personally? This is the most personal situation that you are ever gonna enter, so before you try to revolutionize my business, I'd like to know that you actually know my business.


* Bingham: Bingo, Asians. Never get behind people traveling with infants. I've never seen a stroller collapse in less than 20 minutes. Old people are worse. Their bodies are littered with hidden metal, and they never seem to appreciate how little time they have left on earth. Here you go. Asians. They pack light, travel efficiently, and they've got a thing for slip-on shoes. You've got to love them.
   Natalie: That's racist.
   Bingham: I'm like my mother. I stereotype. It's faster.


* Bingham: Natalie, what is it you think we do here?
   Natalie: We prepare the newly unemployed for the emotional and physical hurdles of job hunting, while minimizing legal blowback.
   Bingham: That's what we're selling. It's not what we're doing. Okay. What are we doing? We are here to make limbo tolerable, to ferry wounded souls across the river of dread until the point where hope is dimly visible. And then stop the boat, shove them in the water and make them swim.


* Bingham: All right, sell it to me.
   Natalie: What?
   Bingham: Sell me marriage.
   Natalie: Okay, how about love?.. Okay. Stability, just somebody you can count on.
   Bingham: How many stable marriages do you know?
   Natalie: Somebody to talk to, someone to spend your life with.
   Bingham: I'm surrounded by people to talk to. I doubt that's going to change.
   Natalie: How about just not dying alone?
   Bingham: Starting when I was 12, we moved each one of my grandparents into a nursing facility. My parents went the same way. Make no mistake, we all die alone. Now, those cult members in San Diego with the Kool-Aid and the sneakers, they didn't die alone. I'm just saying there are options. Fuck.
   Natalie: Brian left me.


* Natalie: I mean, where did you think you'd be by...
   Alex: It doesn't work that way. At a certain point, you stop with the deadlines. It can be a little counterproductive.


* Natalie: How does it not even cross your mind that you might want a future with someone?
   Bingham: It's simple. You know that moment when you look into somebody's eyes and you can feel them staring into your soul and the whole world goes quiet just for a second?
   Natalie: Yes.
   Bingham: Right. Well, I don't.




---Словарик:
knickknack — безделушка, изящный пустячок
linen — бельё
exhilarating — бодрящий, освежающий, возбуждающий; опьяняющий, кружащий голову
loyalty — лояльность; благонадёжность



Заслуженные 7.9/10 на Imdb (~ 39.000 голосов по состоянию на 7/3/10).


+ George Clooney (as Ryan Bingham), без вопросов. Еще и говорит сплошными цитатами.
! Обе его девушки: Vera Farmiga (as Alex Goran) & Anna Kendrick (as Natalie Keener).
~ А фильм-то грустный получился.