I think what struck me most about this movie was the in-depth, character development that the director and scriptwriters gave Ryan Bingham, the main character in “Up in the Air.” At the beginning of the movie, I was inclined toward disliking him. He seemed like a very superficial character who did not seem to care for anything other than the fancy things in life and had a blatant disregard for other people’s feelings. Not to mention, he didn’t even have a close enough relationship with his sister to meet her fiancé prior to the wedding, while most people find family to be one of their priorities.

Things change for Ryan when he finds out that he may no longer be able to live his life primarily going from airport to airport and hotel room to hotel room. This seemingly drastic change in Ryan’s life gave us a window into a different dimension of his character. In his quest to prove that his job could not be done through digital means, we also start seeing the human aspect of him as it applies to his job and his feelings towards other people. I expected a character with such superficial life goals to be disrespectful when faced with conflicting ideas and emotions. Yet, in my opinion, his interactions with Natalie — the new hire for his company that is behind his impending change in lifestyle — are nothing but supportive and compassionate, even if not in the kindest of ways.

Even as the movie came to a close, and he realized that earning flight miles would not fill the void he was now finding in his life, we see that Ryan is a character with a code. He is confronted with a situation where he could interject in a marriage and do less mature things than walking away respectfully. We even see growth as he concedes, through means of a recommendation letter, that Natalie’s statements about human emotion are entirely valid. He learned that he could be wrong about the outcomes of various situations, such as people threatening suicides or his disregard for emotional affection. Better yet, we see that he accepts this all very gracefully.

Despite it being a sad movie, some aspects of it were pretty wholesome.