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Jason Reitman has firmly established his niche in Hollywood.

With his third movie, Up in the Air, the standout director has once again taken us into the world of one of society’s most unfavorable characters and humanized them by walking the fine line between satirical light heartedness and strong, practical moralizing.

With Thank You For Smoking, Aaron Eckhart made us almost like a tobacco lobbyist, entertaining us with his brilliant argumentation while reinforcing the industry’s evil hypocrisy.

With Juno, a lovable Ellen Page dropped a endless line of hilarious one-liners, while sparking discussion about the very real issue of teenage pregnancy.

In this film George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, an obsessive businessman with a goal of flying 10 million miles in the air. His cheerful character is likable and fun, despite his pitiful distinctively corporate worldview.

This is Reitman’s most serious movie. While I guess other people were expecting the more serious tone, I was expecting more humor and memorable lines and while Clooney’s acting is playful, it’s not Juno in that regard.

But when reviewing movies, a lack of laugh-out-loud humor is the hardest thing to decipher. Especially in a movie with as good a screenplay and flow as this likely Best Picture nominee.

The morality tale is well balanced, as the audience often roots for Clooney’s character. I won’t leak any of the story’s great twists, but he doesn’t get everything he wants, and rightfully so.

As a businessman who’s whole career is to race around the county informing various corporate employees that they are fired, his job is thankless. But by trying to teach new business partner Natalie Keener, played by Anna Kendrick, the tools of the trade, he convinces us he tries to go about his work in the most caring and sympathetic way.

But his job is a position that only exists because our world is so job oriented obsessed to the extreme. Like anyone in his position, Clooney’s character is detached from reality and rightfully so, it constantly comes back to bite him.

The film couldn’t be more timely. Everyone knows someone who has been laid off during the past year, and who will be personally touched by Reitman’s latest movie.

But once again, he has given us a new perspective, while pushing a message as basic to human nature as a love of Reitman’s moviemaking brilliance.

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