Up In the Air, the latest film by Juno director Jason Reitman, is an important movie not for the overlying plot and context, but because it also gives a realistic look at the effects of the recession on middle-class America.

George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a character who lives his life on the road and up in the air. He flies from state to state doing the unwanted job of firing people at higher-end corporations and giving motivational pep-talks before they leave.

Bingham also gives speeches about being a traveling businessman. “How much does your life weigh?” says Bingham to a room full of attentive businessmen. “The slower we move, the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living. Some animals were meant to carry each other to live symbiotically over a lifetime. Star-crossed lovers, monogamous swans. We are not swans. We are sharks.”

This is the mindset we see Bingham in before things start to “go wrong.” The company Bingham works for hires a young upstart, Natalie Keener played by Anna Kendrick, fresh from business school ready to change things and move the business of firing people into the digital age. This leaves Bingham grounded, but not until he shows Keener the ropes of traveling and firing people, which makes up most of the film.

Add on family drama, a “friend with benefits” who Bingham starts to fall for, an incredible soundtrack, and a very well-done twist and you have an amazing movie.

However, what solidified this movie’s importance to me, and hopefully anyone else, is the bit of humanity that is portrayed during the firing scenes. The way each character reacts to being fired in this movie is startlingly realistic and adds depth to the fact that this movie is set during our modern-day recession.

Each newly-unemployed character plays his or her role beautifully, and even the big name actors who show up, such as Zach Galifianakis and J.K. Simmons, do amazing jobs portraying a harsh and common reality in today’s corporate world.

I cannot recommend this movie enough. Although in the beginning the movie may seem to be pulling familiar punches, make no mistake you are being set up for much more than expected. You will walk away inspired and possibly changed. George Clooney gives one of his best performances in Up In The Air, and brings Hollywood cinema down to earth.