Up in the Air (2009)

My favorite simplification of Einstein's theory of relativity goes: touch a boiling kettle for five seconds, and it seems like eternity; talk to a beautiful woman for five seconds, and it seems evanescent.

I first experienced this when I was fifteen. Ignoring propriety and good custom, I asked my crush to the prom through text message. The ensuing two or three hours seemed like an eternity. Each passing minute heightened anxiety. Only when she replied -- thankfully, favorably -- was I able to do anything else. I continually experience this moment, and whether it be a mere pregnant pause or the half-day leading to an e-mail reply, it can incapacitate.

Beyond the impossibly cool lifestyle Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) had in Up in the Air, living out of a suitcase and flitting from airport to airport, Up in the Air stirred me most in its climax. Without spoiling the film for anyone, the plot's centerpiece is the moment which incapacitates. And this idea resonates even more for Bingham, who has never taken a chance in his life, emotionally revealing himself to the mysterious stranger that gave him a taste of committed life (Vera Farmiga). The time he arrives at her doorstep in suburban Chicago is his personal eternity.

How the movie ends is less important than the moment where Bingham places himself in that moment. And that's what life is all about -- a series of gambles-of-the-self, where we expose ourselves to the power of possibility (or destiny, for the fatalists), and willfully withstand incapacity for a chance at happiness.