An argument could be made that this minimalism is a way of communicating the quiet power of Deloris, a woman whom Jordan credits for who he is. Davis gives us a sense of this woman’s interiority through raised eyebrows, questioning stares and the rare smile of approval, but it feels like she’s working with a skeletal figure. Although Deloris gets a considerable amount of screen time, her character doesn’t feel developed enough to carry the full weight of Air’s dramatic aspirations. Affleck films these scenes in close-ups meant to invoke the developing mutual appreciation between the two parties, but the screenplay (by Alex Convery) makes it hard to buy. His questions appeal to the value Deloris places on family, fairness and the unquestionable greatness of her son. Their conversations - it’s a talky movie - mark a turn in Air. Deloris, especially, demands a quiet respect, which Sonny, in awe, gives her. They are immune to his salesman charm and unfazed by his dramatic entrance onto their property. Deloris (Davis) and James (Julius Tennon) turn out to be a tougher crowd than Sonny anticipated. After a crucial call with Jordan’s agent, David Falk (a hilarious Chris Messina), Sonny flies from Oregon to North Carolina to court Jordan’s parents. Sonny isn’t one to take no for an answer or ignore his instincts. When they are later joined by Peter Moore (Matthew Maher), Nike’s creative director, the film applies - wonderfully - the poetic reverence usually reserved for portraying the sport in these types of dramas to the process of designing a shoe. The dynamics within this group of coworkers and friends offer most of the film’s comedic relief while also helping us deepen our understanding of Nike’s philosophy. His colleagues Howard White (Chris Tucker), Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman) and George Raveling (Marlon Wayans), one of Jordan’s coaches at the 1984 Olympics, all try to dissuade him. The boss disagrees, and he’s not the only skeptic. Phil and Sonny’s divergent ideologies come to a head when Sonny proposes putting all of the fledgling division’s money on Michael Jordan. Affleck plays Phil’s contradictions - the man’s simultaneous slavish devotion to the bottom line and obsession with Buddhism - as one of the film’s running jokes. The brash executive from a Pittsburgh suburb functions on a different plane from his zen-aspiring boss, who believes in focus groups and methodology. Sonny responds by suggesting that going public was a mistake for the company’s ethos. In an early conversation, Phil reminds Sonny that he hired him to grow their basketball division, not tank it. The film opens four years after Nike went public, a move that puts Phil at the behest of an omniscient board. (Before signing Jordan, the shoe company held a meager 17 percent of the market compared to competitors Adidas and Converse.) Their conversations take place in Phil’s appropriately retro office (the production design is by François Audouy) and offer insights into how both executives tried to balance the imagination of Nike’s scrappy roots alongside its corporate ambitions. The old friends are magnetic as Sonny - who’s in charge of the company’s flailing basketball division - and Phil try to take Nike to the next level. Their scenes possess a kinetic and intimate dynamism that the rest of the film approaches but doesn’t always match. That direction allows Affleck, who plays Nike CEO Phil Knight in the film, to organize Air around the broad, feel-good themes of a standard sports drama despite no on-the-court action.Ĭast: Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Viola Davis, Jason Bateman, Chris Messina, Matthew Maher, Marlon Wayansįor most audiences, Air will be worth seeing just for the starry cast - particularly the reunion between Damon and Affleck. In Air, Affleck attaches himself to the sentimental, reaching for a narrative that recasts the deal between Jordan and Nike as the story of legendary Nike executive Sonny Vaccaro ( Matt Damon) trying to win over the player’s mother, Deloris ( Viola Davis). Tetris, for example, which also premiered at SXSW this year, took the genre route, turning the history of a video game licensing battle into a Cold War thriller. Movies about corporate legalities and closed-door meetings are rarely anyone’s idea of a good time, but there are ways to inject them with energy. That contract, closed a year before the first Air Jordans were sold to the public, changed Nike’s reputation and altered the way players negotiated brand deals. The film, which premiered at SXSW, chronicles the tense Nike campaign to sign Michael Jordan, then an NBA rookie, to his first sneaker deal in 1984. Ben Affleck’s Air operates in a respectful and deeply reverential register when it comes to its subject, his family and the sport in which he made his legacy.
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