All I’ve heard from people who have seen Up In The Air is that it’s ending really killed the entire film. Personally, I think that’s bull. No, maybe it wasn’t as ideal as most people would have hoped for, but sometimes that’s just the way it is. If anything, the ending just added to the film’s message.

Ok, STOP. If you haven’t seen Up In The Air and are planning to, what lies beneath contains spoiler information. You may read at your own risk, but you have been warned.

Most people, including myself, really enjoyed this movie. George Clooney was stellar in the lead role and relatively little known (with the exception of you blinded by thinking the ‘Twilight’ films are any good) Anna Kendrick put on a performance that will surely launch the 24-year-old’s career.

The plot was entertaining and realistic. I might be a college student, but I fly a lot. I’ve flown in and out of almost every airport visited in Up In The Air and am able to recognize people like Clooney’s character of Ryan Bingham. For all intents and purposes, he’s represents one half of travelers in the United States on a daily basis. The entire movie was honest to how life really is, so why was it so shocking that him and Alex (Vera Farmiga) didn’t live happily ever after?

I realize that this is going to sound like I am a depressed loner spitting my take on how love doesn’t exist. I’m sorry, but that’s not it at all. I’m in a very happy and committed relationship.  No no, I am not being a pessimist here, I’m being honest. I’m smart enough to realize that, while I may not condone it, the fact Alex was married with children and Ryan was just her escape on the road was more than predictable.

Is there some tacit rule that states “any film that involves a love story and comes out during the holiday season must have a happy ending?”

The ending was a real life ending, not a fantasy for hopeless romantics to one day pop in their Blu Ray players to give them the motivation they need to ask out the girl that moved in down the hall.

Life isn’t scripted the way we want it to be. Sometimes things don’t turn out the way we want them to, but that doesn’t have to be a bad things, it’s simply an opening to a new opportunity–and that’s something the Up In The Air was preaching its entire run-time with how CTC’s whole firing process worked.

If you thought the ending to Up In The Air was “bad,” then you clearly misunderstood the message it was trying portray. There’s always time for a new beginning.