Story of my life?

Up in the Air means to be a critique of how we live now: Social networking is a substitute for intimacy that's just as phony as Bingham's doctrine of emotional self-sufficiency. Natalie's cruel scheme for online firing suggests an updated gag from Chaplin's Modern Times but it's hardly outlandish. (I have a colleague who was fired on a conference call.) But like Juno, Up in the Air conjures a troubling reality and then wishes it away. —J. Hoberman, PTSNBN