Netflix’s basketball focused drama is a huge win with Steven Soderbergh behind the camera.
Before Man of Steel, sports was my passion. I was mainly focused on football and baseball, but I always loved exploring basketball here or there. High Flying Bird takes an NBA agent, Ray (played by a brilliant Andre Holland), and puts him deep into an NBA lockout, where his client is trying to make sure he holds onto the rookie contract. This is right in my wheelhouse, and it didn’t disappoint. High Flying Bird is accessible, engaging, and simple enough to eventually astound with high concept ideas.
It’s the name of Soderbergh’s game when he’s on top of it. Taking simple ideas and spreading it out like paint across a canvas (He’s basically a hairless Bob Ross). For most of the time, High Flying Bird feels like a commentary on a shifting filmmaking industry. From big time studios dominating the market, to rival streaming services forcing them to make power plays and showing a changing in tide. Maybe this is a reach, but even if it was, we all know that Soderbergh uses the medium (especially as of late) to quickly find a way to stay in touch with our reality. With 2018’s underrated thriller, Unsane, being a commentary on those who suffer from institutions that diagnose them with insanity when claiming their perpetrators of harm still haunt them to this very day. It’s a perfect film for the rise of the Me Too movement, and here it is no different for a new perspective from Soderbergh.
Using the sports landscape as a means to pave the way for dialogue on consumerism is a fascinating decision. Moonlight’s co-writer, Tarell McCraney pens a sharp script with fascinating characters and a pocket of the sports scene that doesn’t get enough attention. Soderbergh visualizes that well and returns to shooting on an iPhone as he had previously done with Unsane. Where the grimy confines of a mental institution are properly framed there, offices, local basketball courts and bars are well lit and colored here. It may have to do with the HDR setting on my Netflix account, but each setting spoke on a new idea to compliment the whole. There is personality in every corner and Soderbergh never misses an opportunity to seize that.
High Flying Bird might not be the next big Oscar winner or Netflix craze a-la Bird Box (let’s be honest, this movie could have used more blindfolds), but it’s a timely, witty, clever film that doesn’t take up much of your time. Running at an efficient 90 minutes and using every minute to explore it’s world and characters to allow for themes to strike a powerful chord when it reaches its final minutes. Steven Soderbergh once again proves why he is one of the greatest directors of our time with his Netflix debut, and he does it in an innovative, well realized, timely way. An absolute slam dunk.
High Flying Bird gets a 92/100