Nominated for six Golden Globes and likely to get as many Oscars, this smart, sexy, slickly edited comedy, from the director of Juno, runs the risk of being over-hyped.
But ditch the expectations and you won’t be disappointed. Determinedly ‘a film of the moment’, it stars the ever gorgeous George Clooney as Ryan, the smooth-talking consultant hired to come in and axe staff (here touchingly ‘played’ by real, recently fired people), when companies are too squeamish to do it themselves.
Yet Ryan has his mind on higher goals – namely that of being the seventh person ever to clock up ten million frequent flyer miles.
A worthy aim now threatened when his own company employs a 23-year-old ‘efficiency expert’ (Anna Kendrick, rightly nominated for every Best Supporting Actress gong going) who is not only amusingly unseduced by Ryan’s charm – ‘I so don’t think of him that way.
He’s old’ – but proposes cutting costs by grounding him and training a team of ‘Terminators’ to fire people via scripted videoconferencing instead.
A ‘recession comedy’ admittedly sounds like a real downer – particularly if you’ve recently been made redundant yourself.
Yet this isn’t. Partly because it’s a brilliantly astute twist on the romcom that sparkles with spiky one-liners and outstanding performances, including Vera Farmiga’s love interest, and partly because only Clooney could make this shallow commitment-phobe warm and appealing.
Exuding the old Hollywood charm of Cary Grant, he pokes fun at his own bachelor image, generously encouraging us to pity rather than envy his character’s glitzy yet hollow lifestyle that forces him to ‘spend 43 miserable days of the year at home’ to the point where you leave feeling weirdly consoled by the fact that, hey, at least I’m better off than George Clooney.