“High Flying Bird”–Movie Review

This week, I attended a screening at The Film Society of Lincoln Center of the new Netflix drama, “High Flying Bird”, directed by Steven Soderbergh. 

Synopsis

During an NBA lockout, can the players figure out a way to monetize their athletic ability in order to earn a living?

Story

After nearly six months of an NBA lockout, professional basketball player Erick (Melvin Gregg) is running low on funds; he has wound up being forced to borrow money because he spent everything he had before the lockout.  As if things aren’t bad enough, Erick now finds himself being lectured by his agent Ray (André Holland), who is also in a similar situation due to the lockout.  Upon returning to the office, Ray learns that the previously successful agency he works for has been forced to lay off much of its staff due to the lockout.  Since Ray primarily represents NBA players, he’s out, too.

Despite his situation, his (now former) assistant Sam (Zazie Beetz) not only remains loyal to him, but now also tries to continue to help him dig himself – and his main client – out of the deep hole in which they find themselves.  With no end in sight to the lockout, Erick is growing increasingly impatient and starts taking it out on Ray, who has assured him he could turn things around for them both.  One day at a charity event, Erick is confronted by one of his main rivals on the court; they decide to settle their differences by playing a little game of one-on-one.  A video of their basketball duel is recorded and uploaded to the Internet.  It doesn’t take much time for it to go viral.

Before long, Ray and Erick are being inundated with offers to make a regularly scheduled television show where Erick plays one-on-one with another professional athlete.  Discussions of big money are being tossed around.  But would making such a commitment violate Erick’s contract and render him susceptible to a lawsuit with the NBA?  Since the lockout has been protracted, Ray argues that the league has not upheld its part of the bargain and Erick is free to seek another means of livelihood.  Will Ray and Erick risk their career on this deal or can the NBA end the lockout beforehand?       

Review

The premise for “High Flying Bird” is rather clever; while there may be some comparisons with “Jerry Maguire”, such a comparisons can only be done on the most superficial level – a story about a sports agent.  Where this movie takes a totally different turn is that the agent uses out-of-the-box thinking in combination with modern-day technology in order to solve a crucial problem.  Part of the enjoyment in watching this film comes from watching the agent out-play and out-think everyone else who believes they are considerably smarter than he.   

Unfortunately, the movie in its entirety does not hold together terribly well and comes off as a bit muddled in areas.  This is especially true when certain characters are introduced and the viewer is not quite clear who these people are and what relationship they have to the primary characters.  Instead, the audience is left to figure it all out as the movie unfolds, which risks taking the viewer out of the story temporarily.  Also, by the conclusion of the film, there is little in the way of an emotional impact on the viewer since there wasn’t much of an investment in the characters early on.      

Following the screening, there was an interview with the movie’s screenwriter Tarell Alvin McCraney, as well as two cast members, André Holland and Zazie Beetz.  Holland stated that he kicked off this project by pitching the idea to Soderbergh and it took four years to be realized.  Soderbergh shot the entire movie on an iphone. Beetz said that she found some differences in the way she approached acting before an iphone as opposed to a traditional camera; while her acting is basically the same, she noted that performing in front of an iphone is somewhat less distracting.  She added that shooting in this fashion, they moved more quickly because there was no setup required – natural lighting was utilized, so no lights needed to be positioned. Beetz added that since this shoot didn’t allocate much time for rehearsal, it required all of the actors to be extremely well prepared at the time they were before the camera.