Directed by Jason Reitman, whose last film was the universally adored Juno, this portrait of a loveless man, who earns his living by flying around America and making total strangers redundant, hardly sounds like cause for merriment.

In the current, harsh economic climate, any comedy that directly reminds us of the precariousness of our daily lives is challenging to say the least.

However, Reitman's screenplay, co-written by Sheldon Turner and adapted from Walter Kirn's novel, elegantly navigates a path between the bleak and the wryly amusing, helped in no small part by a charming lead performance from George Clooney.

Inevitably, there is some dramatic turbulence during this first class, 108-minute flight but thankfully, all of the main characters remain airborne. Just.

Ryan Bingham (Clooney) spends more than 300 days a year firing employees he has never met before because their bosses are too chicken to do the dirty deed.

He has to weather the tears and tantrums, the pleas for a second chance and the occasional threat to commit suicide.

As a result of his demanding work, Ryan has no time for personal commitments.

He doesn't have a girlfriend and has begrudgingly agreed to a request from sister Julie (Lynskey) and her fiance Jim (McBride) to take photographs with a cardboard standee of the happy couple in various far-flung locations.

Ironically, Ryan is threatened with redundancy when efficiency expert Natalie (Kendrick) puts forward a plan to their boss Craig (Bateman) that agents should conduct terminations via video conferencing.

"Before you revolutionise my business, you had better know my business," growls Ryan, dragging Natalie along to real-life consultations, where she witnesses the emotional devastation firsthand.
Meanwhile, the usually cool Mr Bingham falls under the spell of fellow jetsetter Alex (Farmiga).

* In Planet 51 (U) the computer-animated comedy from debutant Spanish directors Jorge Blanco, Javier Abad and Marcos Martinez unfolds on a world far from ours where little green men, women and child live in domestic bliss. But the crash-landing of a dim-witted American astronaut (voiced by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) causes chaos.

* Celebrated conceptual artist Sam Taylor-Wood makes her directorial debut with Nowhere Boy (15), this handsomely-crafted valentine to John Lennon's formative years, based on the memoirs of the assassinated former Beatle's half-sister. Aaron Johnson stars as the pre-Fab Four Liverpudlian torn between his emotionally-repressed aunt and guardian (Kristin Scott Thomas) and unstable biological mother (Anne-Marie Duff).