My favourite Clooney film is Michael Clayton. He subverts his normal acting routine, his charm, the handsome, expressive face, the confident, mature particularly American masculinity and gravelly voice. He radiates a degree of moral compromise and weariness throughout the film that bursts in a barn-storming final speech. Clayton wasn’t the American male-archetype. In a similar fashion, Up in the Air isn’t America, land of opportunity, confidence, big business. This is a recession film, lampooning the corporate thinking of the past decade and shows the fallout of corporate-restructuring.