Intro
High Flying Bird (2019)
To date, Steven Soderbergh has filmed two movies using an iPhone, with Unsane being filmed on an iPhone 7 and this one on an iPhone 8. Of the two movies, Unsane has the better justification for using an iPhone, but High Flying Bird is the better advertisement for the feasibility of filming a movie that way.
The movie follows Ray Burke, who is a high powered agent whose job is at stake due to a fictional NBA lockout that has been going on for a few months at the start of the movie. Burke and the agency he works for are running out of money. Players don't get paid, agents don't either.
On the players' side, he is helped by his "not his assistant" Sam, played by Zazie Beetz (Atlanta). He also frequently talks to the head of negotiations for the players, Myra (Sonja Sohn), and head of negotations for the NBA, David (Kyle MacLachlan). And while he presumably has more than a few clients, we really only see his top client, the future #1 pick of the NBA draft, Erick Scott (played by American Vandal's Melvin Gregg).
Without spoiling the movie, essentially what happens is with no prospect of future employment and no seeming rush on either side to get a deal done, Burke has to enact a plan to get both his agency and himself money, so as to avoid being let go. The movie has the makings of a heist movie despite no theft occurring. But the plot is revealed in a very similar way to a heist movie.
The clever thing about this movie, which is written by Tarell Alvin McCraney, who conceived of the story for Best Picture winner Moonlight, is that the movie is about the Burke's plan while also being about something else. It's somewhat of a message picture - the fucked up nature of sports exploiting young black athletes specifically - without necessarily feeling like a message picture.
It illustrates the downfalls of modern sports leagues in a way that is exposed by a lockout. It could feel like the movie only exists to express a certain message and it's clear that's why McCraney wanted to write this movie - but it's not hamstrung by that fact. The message feels like a logical extension of what would happen during a lockout, not a forced message.
Unlike in Unsane, the iPhone doesn't become a crutch or gimmicky either. The movie is beautiful. There are times when you forget that it's shot on an iPhone, in fact you'd probably forget about it for the majority of the movie. Which is why this is a better advertisement for why shooting on an iPhone is a viable solution than Unsane was.
It's kind of weird to have a movie simultaneously be an Ocean's Eleven quality caper without the theft while at the same time revealing a flaw in the capitalistic system of modern sports without either side feeling out of place. And I have to commend both McCraney and Soderbergh for making it work as well as it does.
3/4 stars
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