In director Jason Reitman's new film, Up in the Air the character of Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) has embraced a lifestyle which minimizes any potential personal interaction. He spends over three hundred and twenty of the days each year away from "home," flying from place to place firing people. He spends his life in a world of airline seats, business hotels, and indistinct offices that the novel dubs, "'Airworld." He's perfectly content in Airworld, secure in the routine of travel, and the anonymity of crowds of strangers. His only goals are to reach an epic ten million frequent flyer miles (getting the perks that come with that milestone) and keeping his life in Airworld going as long as possible.

Bingham's minimalistic existence is governed by routine and by following a set of rules that he's created for himself. Things like, "Never get behind old people. Their bodies are littered with hidden metal and they never seem to appreciate how little time they have left." serve not only to streamline the travel process, but to separate Bingham from his fellow travelers. They don't really belong in Airworld. They're just passing through. It's only when he encounters another resident of his private little world, in the form of Alex (Vera Farmigia) that he really shows an interest. Her mileage numbers may be pedestrian in comparison with his hundreds of thousands a year but she still racks up a respectable total, and can appreciate the finer things in the professional travelers arsenal, like an American Airlines concierge key. She's an equal, and not just one of the millions of rubes that briefly pass through Bingham's life.

This is where it all starts to fall apart for Bingham. Because Up in the Air is not a romantic comedy where the gruff loner learns the error of his ways through the love of a good woman. This is an altogether different, and more realistic, type of animal. Alex isn't the transformative force for positive change that one would expect her to be. They aren't going to grow old together, settling down with a nice house in a the suburbs a bunch of kids underfoot. Instead she's going to break his heart. This isn't a love story. It's an affirmation of Bingham's lifestyle and worldview.

No matter what Bingham may say to himself, or others, Airworld isn't really about the routine, the joys of aviation, or the peace of living a minimalistic life with few possessions. It's about isolation. About protecting yourself from the pain that always comes along with any personal relationship. It's about lightening the backpack by removing the heaviest items; the people. In Airworld you don't get the joys that come witn having people in your life, but you also don't have to live through the sorrows.

Nothing proves this more than the relationships of everyone around Bingham. His young protege Natalie (Anna Kendrick) is dumped (via text message) by the boyfriend that she followed to Omaha. She turned her life upside down just on the hope that her relationship would work out, and was left with nothing but disappointment. One of his sisters' marriages is falling apart, leaving her staying in the same hotel that he is when he gets into town. The other one isn't really all that much better off, stuck with a fiancé (Danny McBride) that has so many doubts about their future that it took a very disingenuous speech about the joys of commitment from Ryan to get him to the alter. For some reason I don't see their marriage really having much of a long term future.

Which is nothing compared to the day in, day out, existence of a job where Bingham has to tell people that a company that they've been loyal to for years, or even for most of their lives, doesn't need them anymore. They're left feeling betrayed, lost, hurt, and confused with only Bingham there to shepherd them into the future. It's no wonder that he feels safer, and more secure in Airworld. He's surrounded on a daily basis with the loss and pain of ruined relationships, both personal and professional. It's better to be free of all that, and ready to fly away at a moment's notice.

In my own experience I see very little evidence that Bingham is wrong when he talks people's relationships weighing them down. Often aren't the people in our lives the only thing that grounds us to a place? Or a job? Or an idea? Wouldn't it be nice to have the freedom to pick up and go at a moment's notice? I often find myself thinking that it would. That it's time to get moving. Because moving truly is living and I want to live.

Is it worth giving up everything that goes along with the relationships, and the things, that weigh us down though? I'm not sure. Even with all the compromises, negotiations, doubts, fears, and failures it's our relationships that bring us the most joy. Ryan Bingham himself, in his speech to the nervous fiancé, asks this question, "Think of your happiest memories, the most important moments in your life. Were you alone?" I can honestly say to myself that I wasn't. I can also say that my worst memories, the times where I felt most helpless, lonely and distraught have been when I was alone, at night, lost in my own thoughts.

Why then would I envy Bingham and his solitary existence in the calm of Airworld? It's because of the moments before those worst moments. The times when not only do I feel like the people in my life are weighing me down, it feels like I'll never move again. It's the thought that the highs will never be as high, or as frequent, as the lows will be low. That all of the risks, and pain will just end in bitter disappointment. That it'd be better to have spent the time safely ensconced in Airworld than to be alone, having failed to make the most basic of human connections.

This is the lesson that Ryan Bingham ultimately learns from his brief relationship with Alex. That he'd have been better off never getting emotionally involved than he was putting himself out there and being put back in his place. He'd have been better off never trying, content in the perfect little world he constructed for himself, alone in Airworld. I wish I could be too.