The tale of two tales

Really Rough Draft.  

Chad Anderson          

English 102

Instructor Laura Cline            

22 April 2012

The Tale of Two Tales

                Up in the Air, has two different versions, the movie and the book.  Both are good tales in their own right, but they are fundamentally different in the points they are trying to get across.  They were written at different times in different social and political climates.  Both works show those attitudes in their style of storytelling.  The book written in 2001 is a third person narrative of adventure in the life of a traveling businessman struggling  with ambitions that never pan out, relationship problems, and an obsession with getting one million sky miles; while dealing with a life threating disease that he ignores.  The movie filmed in 2009 is a romantic comedy trying to place value on stability, commitment, and family life.  They both have underlying subtext lined throughout, but they don’t have the same agendas whatsoever.  They do share one basic point, the main character, Ryan Bingham, is a selfish, egocentric, yet well-spoken individual.  The two stories were written differently, because of economic downturns starting in 2005, the outlook on businessmen based on those economic downturns, theatrical changes that emphasize a softer main character and supporting characters, and a change in commitment views and family life.

            The economy before 2001, the year the book was written, was going through a huge boom in large part due to the starting businesses on the Internet.  The U.S. and other countries were utilizing a new tool that revolutionized the way companies did business.  All you had to do to start a company was make a web page and hope it did well.  Business was booming, jobs were plentiful and money was being spent.  This all came to an end after the book was written, the dot-com bubble burst which sent the economy into a downward spiral that last to this day. 

            The writing of the movie was severely affected by this downturn in the economy.  One instance is the difference in that in the movie Ryan Bingham places his job in high regard.  He wants to keep his job from being taken over by the advancement of videoconferencing.  In the book Ryan doesn’t care about his job whatsoever.  In fact he has a quit date that he hasn’t even told his boss about.  This is significant because of the joblessness of the American people at the time the movie was written.  The writer, Jason Reitman, didn’t want to portray someone that wasn’t grateful for having a job, because so many people didn’t have one in the first place.  He also wanted to make Ryan look stronger in the eyes of the audience.

            Businessmen in 2009 weren’t highly regarded, because of the state of the economy.  They had driven the U.S. into a hole too big to fill, even though the government dumped huge sums of money in the form of bailouts to the lending and financial institutions.  Lots of innocent people lost their life savings to faceless businessmen, investing their money unwisely.  The movie’s goal was to portray a human side to businessmen; even the ones that fired people for a living.  This is where the character Natalie comes in to play.  She is the character that questions the lifestyle that Ryan is living.  She tries to implement the videoconferencing style to CTC, the company where Ryan works.  Even though she is trying to streamline business, she is the character that in the end shows the most humanity.  Ryan does his job with cold calculation, while Natalie doesn’t know what she is getting in to.  She finally quits after a suicide, which derails the program she was trying to put in place.  This shows the human aspect of the characters that are working in a company that’s whole goal is to keep the job of firing people faceless. 

            Family values have always been a big issue, but they have a big influence in the writing of the movie.  In the book, Ryan doesn’t want a family, and really doesn’t want to deal with the family he has.  He is living a lifestyle in both the book and movie that is lonely and isolated.  It’s only in the movie that he has some regrets towards the end for living that lifestyle.  In the book he has no intention of having family or even a girlfriend.  In the movie his isolation is encompassed by the slogan for his lectures, “What’s in Your Backpack” (Reitman).  His slogan sums up the fear of commitment and settling down that he has.  He is living a live void of all possessions that most people hold high in value.  He is lacking any real connections with people in the world that most people live.  They strive for stable lives and personal relationships.  This is something that Ryan doesn’t even attempt to try.  He is escaping from a life that he is afraid to be involved with.  This point is what the movie tries to bring across.  A good example is when he is outside the restaurant talking to his sisters after the rehearsal dinner, he asks his sister who is walking her down the aisle.  She says that her fiancé’s uncle is doing the honor.  The reason he isn’t doing the honors, is because he is never around.  In the book it is altogether different; Ryan is the one that saves Julie from running away from her wedding.  He is the one that talks her into going back to her fiancé and going through with the wedding.  It is a reverse of the tale between the movie and book. 

            While the movie focuses on relations with other humans, the book is more of a rant telling all of the selfish thoughts of Ryan Bingham.  They are both works that are worth your time.  Although completely different they are both trying to enlighten your sense of the business world.  In the end, both works should be enjoyed separately because they don’t have anything to do with each other.  In this manner the reader or viewer truly enjoy the product of the creators vision.