Macho Antidotes to the Royal Wedding – Part 2: United on BBC iplayer

My second suggestion of anti-Royal Wedding medication for the ordinary man, following the sensational spectacle of Thor, is a single strong dose of BBC drama United, shown on Sunday and now available on iplayer. If Thor was grounded in fun fantasy then United is rooted firmly in poignant and period storytelling, of the sort the Beeb does so well. In fact with budget cuts beginning to bite, our national broadcaster has made it clear that quality dramas like United and The Crimson Petal and the White are the future of BBC2 in particular. If future projects are as good as these then it’s a wise as well as an economical decision.

United is the story of the tragic Munich air crash that killed most of Manchester United football club’s first team, as well as reporters and staff, after a successful European cup match in Belgrade. The squad’s flight was stopping over in a snowy Munich to refuel and the players and coaching staff were keen to return in time for their league game that weekend, and thus avoid a points deduction. For most football fans the catastrophe that cruelly cut short the life of so many of “Busby’s Babes” is the stuff of familiar legend. I have been a Manchester United fan since the age of 6 and was raised on the fairytales of pure footballers from both before the disaster and after it. The men directly touched by such devastating events forged the foundations for Manchester United to become the world famous and successful club it is today.

Rest assured though, United is a good drama and an absorbing watch, pure and simple. For those without the background in football heritage or even those that can’t tolerate the game, this is a captivating human story of careers, celebrity and comebacks. Most importantly this is an extremely British tale and the perfect anaesthetic for ears bleeding profusely because of the hypocritical and imbecilic and meaningless whining of Americans pleasuring themselves over the blandest, most lifeless 24 hour coverage of the exterior of Bucking-HAM palace.

Despite the subject matter United is not all doom and gloom. For over half an hour from the start we are welcomed into the heart of a football club going from strength to strength. But it’s not about the football; it’s about the characters at the club. We are treated to finely honed BBC costume drama detail, from the 1950s fashions, to the dressing room, to Old Trafford, the Theatre of Dreams itself, rendered lifelike with impressively unnoticeable CGI. Most pleasing of all is the delicious double act formed between David Tennant’s Welsh coach Jimmy Murphy and Dougray Scott’s understated but charismatic portrayal of United’s most celebrated manager, Matt Busby.

Most of the time, Tennant steals the show, as he does in almost everything he’s in. It is by no means one of the more important judges of an actor, but Tennant continually succeeds at accent after accent, this time believably carrying off the musical Welsh tongue. This role also allows him to show off other more vital aspects of his talent too though. He has tremendous fun motivating the players as a coach with vision and then more than copes with the emotional side to the story when the drama hits. The majority of Doctor Who fans may now be fully warming to Matt Smith but Tennant remains a class act and it’s actually refreshing to see him embracing parts as diverse and interesting as this one.

It’s fitting that United is mostly told from the perspective of a young Bobby Charlton. He’s now a Sir and a national treasure, but then he was just a lad that wanted to play football. And he ended up living through a harrowing and traumatic experience. Yet he came out the other side of it and was lucky enough to have been part of the great team before the crash, and the even greater side built from the ashes. Jack O’Connell, who plays the young Charlton here, does a really good job whether he’s stumbling through the plane’s ripped ruins and grimacing at explosions, practicing on the pitch or gazing up in awe at the stadium.

As a production United really does ooze quality. The acting is top notch, the music is touching and the directing beautiful, particularly at the snowy crash site itself and in the dressing rooms. It also deals sensitively with an immensely emotive issue. The question of blame is delicately raised and wisely the film does not nail its opinion to any specific interpretation. Some will blame those who were desperate to play abroad and then make it back home in time for the league match, and indeed Busby blamed himself. Some will blame the league officials who refused to grant a postponement to the fixture after United’s European trip. Some will insist the officials at the airport and the mechanics and the pilots should have taken more care. But the sensible will just accept the terrible tragedy of it all. The enormous grief.

Of course the overwhelming and important cost of the crash was the human one, with so many young men dead. Their families and girlfriends and mates were robbed of their lives prematurely. As a drama United undoubtedly tells that tale. It often seems callous, stupid and emotionally ignorant to talk of the cost to the game of football. I call myself a football fan but much of the time the game leaves me unmoved. I do not live and breathe the game, I no longer care greatly as I used to as a child when one of my favoured teams does poorly. It takes a great occasion or an unusually interesting story, or an exciting match with beautiful passages of play, to truly ignite my interest these days. But there certainly was a significant cost to the game of football after the Munich crash, and it was a cost that mattered almost as much as the loss of their lives. United tells that story too.

It mattered that such a great and talented team was almost completely wiped out, because it mattered to them. It would have mattered to those that died and it mattered to those left behind. It mattered to the fans that mourned them and even the people that knew them. It’s too easy to talk with nostalgia of how football used to be, with starting elevens as opposed to giant squads and meagre salaries and basic training pitches; the modern game is too often ignorantly slated as excessive junk. Watching United though you can see the appeal of that nostalgia, of an old school approach brimming with romance, you can understand those who knew it firsthand ranting and raving at the money making machine that’s replaced it.

Nowadays you wouldn’t get Tennant’s character, a first team coach, ringing round top flight clubs begging for players in the aftermath of a disaster so that the locals could see a game and to maintain the winning philosophy of a club. It just wouldn’t be possible. Or necessary. You wouldn’t get a fairytale quite as magical as the one that swept a ramshackle team, comprised of youngsters and amateur unknowns, to the F.A. Cup Final at Wembley just months after the crash.

I’m not ashamed to admit I cried watching United. I might have been predisposed to an outpouring of emotion because United stirred up a long since cooled love in me for the beautiful game. But I defy anyone not to be moved by such excellent acting, such accurate portrayals of grief and commitment and passion. I have been reminded by United that anything, be it art, table tennis or cartoons, that takes you out of yourself and absorbs you, helping you to forget pain and grief completely just for a moment, is a worthwhile and admirable activity. Something worth fighting for.

The Royal Wedding is more likely to make me vomit than get teary but I know it would be more acceptable to sob down the pub over the achievements of football greats than the nuptials of a posh Prince. So when the women are welling up at the sight of a dress or a bouquet, tell them you’re not dead inside you’d just rather save your sympathy and admiration for real royalty.

Up in the Air

There are basically two George Clooneys. There’s the lovable, charming, cocky George. You know the suave Danny Ocean type with that irresistible playful glimmer in his eye. And then there’s cold, calculating, enigmatic Mr Clooney, who oozes just as much mysterious charisma as George, but from a more serious, furrowed face. Like the bearded suit in Syriana or what I imagine the detached, ruthless assassin to be like in Anton Corbjin’s upcoming picturesque character study, The American. The grave Mr Clooney doesn’t get out so much, not because he’s not up to scratch, but because the whole wide world can’t seem to get enough of George.

And it’s definitely the face of likeable bad boy George that Clooney wears in Juno director’s Jason Reitman’s 2009 rom-com Up in the Air. As you might expect from the director of Juno however, this is a rom-com with a twist and consequently a different take on George’s familiar face of fun. There are lashings of misery, isolation and loneliness in this movie that ought to deflate it and well and truly puncture its comedy moments. The audience ought to despise central character Ryan Bingham’s cheery detachment in the midst of the gloom, but it’s a credit to Clooney’s sheer charisma that you’re almost always rooting for him and seeing the pluses of Bingham’s bleak and extreme philosophy of life.  

Put simply and less eloquently, persuasively or amusingly as Bingham phrases it, this philosophy is; travel light. Ditch not only the material possessions but the emotional baggage of normal existence to stay on the move and thus continue to feel alive for as long as possible. Wrap yourself in a cotton wool world of luxury that you are fully aware is fake and artificial but nevertheless gives you a simple satisfaction and loyalty. Embrace exclusivity and inhabit a cocoon of consistency away from the volatile real world. Spend the bulk of your time away from the worker ants tethered to the ground but weightless, floating and drifting, blissfully Up in the Air.

It’s essentially the dream life on the road and Bingham has achieved it so that it has become his normal existence. He has refined and perfected his life to tailor his ever moving, but basic needs. But then two things happen to shatter the cycle of bliss. Anna Kendrick’s Natalie devises a cost saving strategy for Bingham’s company, whereby people like him who skilfully fire people no longer do so face to face across the nation, but from a remote computer screen in the company’s base in Omaha, via the wonders of modern technology. And Bingham meets Vera Farmigan’s Alex, who seems to be his perfect match and as Alex puts it essentially him “with a vagina”. Initially they enjoy each other’s company, are extremely compatible sexually and amusingly synchronise their schedules for further bouts of spontaneous passion. It’s safe organised fun and Bingham doesn’t consider a future with her.

Bingham reacts with scorn to Natalie’s idea of modernising his company and swiftly destroying his way of life. He successfully wins himself the chance to take the young upstart on a brutal tour of the realities of “corporate downsizing”. It’s in this portion of the film that Reitman’s fondness for making us simultaneously laugh and cry at deep, depressing subjects comes into play. It’s also where we see not only an extremely familiar charismatic George, charming people in impossible situations, but also a character who underneath it all does care about the impact of his work, and regards what he does as an art, in that if it is done right he genuinely believes he can steer the newly unemployed on a dignified path to a new life. There are a number of awkward, funny and emotionally affecting scenes where either Clooney or Kendrick must fire someone, and each person offers a new challenge Bingham insists cannot be dealt with via webcam.

Away from the backdrop of a new wave of unemployment, philosophies of life and exploiting misery, Up in the Air becomes a simple love story, in which Bingham realises he wants something, or someone, weighing him down in his previously empty rucksack, giving his life meaning by grounding it. Kendrick’s performance as Natalie is wonderfully believable and funny at times, and it is she who forces Bingham to accept his loneliness, his prolonged state of running through the crowd from his unhappiness. Tragically, even after Bingham has accepted Alex into his life as his guest at his sister’s wedding and physically abandoned his philosophy by running away from a speech he was giving about it, we are reminded of the attraction of travelling light. Bingham finds Alex at her home with a secret family of her own, a real life. He cannot believe he was foolish enough to think she was sharing a real life as empty as his own with him. By packing people in our rucksacks we risk being hurt by them.

The whole film is wonderfully acted, right down to the performances of those freshly fired employees and their varied responses. It also looks great, emphasising the glamour of the hotel bubble world Bingham lives in, as well as its isolation. The opening titles of the film play out to jazzy music and some stylishly edited shots of the ground from above, taking in a multi-coloured picture of America. Despite the good points it’s never actually that funny, with the humour being more of the slight smile at the corners of the mouth than roaring chortle variety. However ultimately the onscreen magnetism of George Clooney drives Up in the Air and is all the more compelling for channelling it in a refreshing, alternative way.