Review: Up In The Air (15)*****

Directed by Jason Reitman, whose last film was the universally adored Juno, this portrait of a loveless man, who earns his living by flying around America and making total strangers redundant, hardly sounds like cause for merriment.

However, Reitman's screenplay, co-written by Sheldon Turner and adapted from Walter Kirn's novel, elegantly navigates a path between the bleak and the wryly amusing, helped in no small part by a charming lead performance from George Clooney.

Inevitably, there is some dramatic turbulence during this first class, 108-minute flight but thankfully, all of the main characters remain airborne. Just.

Ryan Bingham (Clooney) spends more than 300 days a year firing employees he has never met before because their bosses are too chicken to do the dirty deed.

He has to weather the tears and tantrums, the pleas for a second chance and the occasional threat to commit suicide. As a result, Ryan has no time for personal commitments.

He doesn't have a girlfriend and has begrudgingly agreed to a request from sister Julie (Melanie Lynskey) and her fianc Jim (Danny McBride) to take photographs with a cardboard standee of the happy couple in far-flung locations.

Ironically, Ryan is threatened with redundancy when efficiency expert Natalie (Anna Kendrick) puts forward a plan to their boss Craig (Jason Bateman) that agents should conduct terminations via video conferencing. "Before you revolutionise my business, you had better know my business," growls Ryan, dragging Natalie along to real-life consultations, where she witnesses the emotional devastation first-hand.

Meanwhile, the usually cool Mr Bingham falls under the spell of fellow jetsetter Alex (Vera Farmiga).

Up In The Air should secure Clooney another Oscar nomination as Best Actor, if not the actual statuette, for his mesmerising portrayal of a corporate middleman, who is now almost numb to the anguish he wreaks.

Kendrick is a delightful counterpoint as the Little Miss Goody Two Shoes, who toes the company line until Ryan and Alex ply her with drink at a corporate shindig and she finally lets loose, and her relationship with Clooney's debonair mentor is the film's heart and soul.