No matter how many times Steven Soderbergh announces his retirement, he ends up coming back not too long after, and usually ends up making some of the best work in an already stellar career. He came out of his most recent retirement, and released Logan Lucky, the experimental miniseries, Mosaic, and last year’s Unsane. His now has his first feature for Netflix, High Flying Bird, which is also his second one to be shot on an iPhone, which he previously did with Unsane to great effect.
With High Flying Bird, Soderbergh and screenwriter, Tarell Alvin McCraney, have made quite a feat – getting me interested in the minutiae of the sports industry, the politics of it, the way agents and owners play this game outside of the game. I’m not a sports fan, but I can certainly appreciate a sports movie, but it has to do a lot if it wants me to not only understand, but get invested in all the business that happens when a game isn’t going on. They pull that off here in a way not that dissimilar to something like Moneyball, which – oddly enough – Soderbergh was attatched to direct before being taken out because the powers that be didn’t like his idea of using interviews with real athletes, which also – oddly enough – is used here.
In the film, we follow agent, Ray Burke (André Holland). Like any good agent, he works relentlessly to make things work for his client, and he is giving special attention to a broke rookie named Erick Scott (Melvin Gregg). The problem is the NBA is in a lockout, no one is getting paid, and things have gotten so bad that even the company Ray works for has to cut off the company credit cards. He now has to use his wits – and the help of his assistant, Sam (Zazie Beetz) – to figure out a way to satisfy his clients, the head of the players’ union, Myra (Sonja Sohn), and team owner, David (Kyle MacLachlan).
The film is structured kind of like one of Soderbergh’s heist movies. Ray is the fast talker who is always three steps ahead of everyone around him, always planning, scheming, and getting things done. The movie zigs and zags as we follow him from meeting one person to another, getting information, predicting people’s moves, and setting up deals. The dialogue is quick, snappy, and unfathomably dense with information, character nuance, and social subtext. It’s so tightly scripted, and moves along at an effortlessly brisk pace. It can be easily to lose track of things sometimes, especially for someone like me, who doesn’t understand some of the mechanics of this industry and the terminology involved. It is the kind of film you need to pay attention to the entire way through.
Despite occasionally losing myself in some of the details, it’s hard to get frustrated because not only is McCraney’s script incredibly smart and thoughtful, but the filmmaking itself is remarkable. It’s not very shocking to say that because Soderbergh has always experimented with the form, and utilized technology in interesting ways. Unsane used the iPhone to create a sleazy look that reflects the ugliness that ensues. In High Flying Bird, the colors pop, the shots are meticulously planned and blocked, which reflects the kind of meticulous planning and thought process that is required for working in this kind of industry for an agent like Ray, always having to keep track of things and people and places in his mind, and taking the necessary advantages he needs to take to move things along.
High Flying Bird is such a great time, and shockingly engaging for a film that’s so dialogue heavy about a fairly dry subject matter. It’s a testament to the skills behind Soderbergh, McCraney, and it’s incredibly charismatic cast, especially Holland, that it works so well. Like any great heist movie, it captures the euphoric satisfaction of seeing really smart characters work their way through a problem, and tackling the obstacles head on. It’s a film full of ideas, exploring themes such as bodies being treated as corporate commodities, the racial dynamics between black players and rich, white owners, and the exploited finding their own agency outside of a self-serving system. There’s so much to like about this movie, but if you’re someone who is not only into sports, but perhaps hoping to work in that industry, this is required viewing.