Up in the Air Trivia

1. What does the main character, Ryan Bingham, do for a living?

From Quiz Up in the Air

Answer: He fires people.

Ryan Bingham (Clooney) works for a company called CTC that other companies pay to fire their employees. Bingham's job is to tell the employee that "their position is no longer available" and to give them a packet with options for the future. The film opens with montages of some of the sacked employees' reactions: sadness, anger, confusion, shame, etc. He always gives them the same line: "Anybody who ever built an empire, or changed the world, sat where you are now. And it's because they sat there that they were able to do it."

From Quiz Up in the Air

Answer: GoalQuest

In his speech he asks the audience to imagine putting everything they own in a backpack, and then asks them what they would take out if he set the backpack on fire. He also asks them to imagine how heavy the backpack feels on their shoulders and how much better they'd feel if it were empty. At the beginning of the movie, Ryan believes heavily in the philosophy he preaches, but by the end of the movie he understands that it can lead only to a depressing life.

From Quiz Up in the Air

Answer: Their elite status cards and travel preferences.

Ryan starts the conversation by remarking that he does not approve of Avis's miles policy, and they begin a suggestive conversation that covers Ryan's Mileage Black Card and his total mileage number, and ends in Ryan's hotel room. They agree to meet again, and each pull out their laptops to mark the date on their calendars. The whole scene is hilarious.

From Quiz Up in the Air

Answer: To take pictures of a cardboard cutout of them at various places.

The reason, as we find out, is that they don't have enough money for a honeymoon, but they still want to have photos. Ryan grudgingly takes photos from various places, though doesn't take it very seriously (evidenced by the fact that he took one of the photos in front of the St. Louis Airport). Despite this, he feels somewhat unappreciated and unimportant when he finds out that his photos are just a few among hundreds that were given to Julie and Jim. Once Ryan hits ten million miles, he gives one million of them to Jim and Julie for a trip around the world.

From Quiz Up in the Air

Answer: He convinces Jim, who had gotten cold feet, to marry her.

Ryan actually steps it up and gives heartfelt advice to Jim, telling him that life "is better with company" and that "everyone needs a copilot". This is in contrast to the backpack speech he starts to give at GoalQuest, which now feels awkward and wrong to him. This is one of Ryan's turning points as a character and he realizes even more that he wants to spend his life with Alex. This event also brings Ryan closer to his family, with whom he never spent much time.

From Quiz Up in the Air

Answer: He finds out she's married and has kids.

Ryan, who is described in the script as "emotionally bleeding to death", leaves, and Alex tells her husband that he was "just some guy who was lost." When Ryan calls Alex the next day, she says the he was an escape, "a parenthesis", and she thought he felt the same way. Ryan is devastated and hangs up, and doesn't see or call Alex again for the rest of the movie.

From Quiz Up in the Air

Answer: He doesn't really care.

Ryan is the seventh person to hit this milestone and he is given a shiny membership card. Ryan just stares at it and has a hard time making small talk with Maynard. When Maynard asks him where he's from, he looks back at him and says, "I'm from here." The whole scene is rather depressing, because at this point Ryan knows that this is his only "accomplishment" in life.

From Quiz Up in the Air

Answer: One of the women she fired committed suicide.

The woman who committed suicide was a woman who was fired earlier in the movie and who actually said she was going to commit suicide, but Ryan assured Natalie that it was all talk. After quitting CTC, Natalie applies for a job at another firm in San Francisco, and Ryan writes her a superb letter of recommendation. The film ends with Ryan still alone, still working for CTC, traveling on the road to fire people.

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