The mass audience knows Ben Affleck as Batman in Zack Snyder’s DC movies. In particularly difficult cases, like the failed gallows from the 2003 film. Only Affleck is also an outstanding director and screenwriter. He showed this to everyone back in 2012 with his film “Argo”. In his new picture Eyre, he entered the territory of sports dramas combined with stories of corporate intrigue. We tell you in the review below what the project turned out to be.

“Air” / Air

Genre drama
Director Ben Affleck
In roles Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Jason Bateman, Marlon Wayans, Chris Messina
Premiere cinema
Release year 2023
Site IMDb

1984 year. Nike is looking for ways to strengthen its position in the sports shoes market. One of the representatives of Nike, Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon), sees potential in a young basketball player, Michael Jordan. And while everyone may be skeptical of the idea, Vaccaro is confident that it is the Jordan contract and the new line of shoes dedicated to him that will take global sneaker culture to the next level. Just to begin with, he will have to overcome many nuances of the life of large corporations and advertising relations in sports.

“Air” cannot be called an easy film to watch – and there are several reasons for this. One of the main ones is that the plot relies heavily on a lot of marketing and business terminology. In this way, “Air” is similar to the “Decline Game”, where everything also depended on the activities of stock brokers. Only Affleck’s movie doesn’t have Margot Robbie in the bathroom explaining all the obscure nuances in an accessible way.

Instead, “Air” offers extremely textured and saturated characters. Even within the framework of a strict corporate culture, they manage to attract with their charisma and reveal themselves from unexpected sides. The entire film is built on dialogues, so developing the characters is one of the main keys to success. And with her, Airy is in complete order.

It is very nice to watch the duo of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Best friends in real life know how to recreate real chemistry on screen. Therefore, watching their interaction is a real pleasure.

The film binds you to the screen and sometimes makes you feel sincere shivers even in those moments when nothing special seems to be happening. Local intrigue and somewhat idealistic attempts to make the world a better place are fascinating. After all, even sneakers can influence public consciousness.

“Air” is a kind of declaration to all people who made shoes a huge layer of culture. After all, today the race for new models of sneakers has turned into a fierce hobby, and the difference between the colors and the length of the laces can be the cause of fierce disputes. Affleck, together with screenwriter Alex Conway, perfectly managed to convey the origins of such trends.

At the same time, the film turned out to be extremely American. It is largely based on the cultural features of the USA. Pragmatism here is combined with an almost infantile belief that somewhere inside gloomy offices and soulless corporations real miracles are happening. “Air” perfectly shows that these miracles are possible.

Michael Jordan himself, because of whom the plot revolved, is practically not shown in the film. He does not have a single line of dialogue, and he himself is more like a shadow, a fleeting silhouette. And this also has its powerful script idea.

Eyre focuses not on the loud star, but on the people who work from the shadows. They decide the future of companies and entire generations with a couple of phrases. Sometimes their solutions are not well thought out and practically chaotic. But it is from such chaos that true beauty is born.

Obviously, Affleck wants to compete for the “Oscar” again, so he made an uncompromising and complex movie, to fully understand which you need to understand sports, business, marketing and American culture of the 80s. There are a lot of layers to Airy, and it’s a real pleasure for fans to understand them.

But even if you don’t understand any of the above, Air will still give you pleasure. It is due to the idealistic, ephemeral and almost imperceptible sense of changes in the world for the better. To evoke such emotions with a film about sneakers is already a huge achievement. And it’s likely that you’ll buy your first pair of Air Jordans after watching it.

Pros:
development of all characters at the highest level; perfectly conveyed nuances of corporate and business culture; competent combination of idealistic aspirations and pragmatism of corporations; outstanding chemistry between Matt Damon and Ben Affleck

Cons:
some complexity of the plot; too strong dependence of the film on the cultural characteristics of the Americans of the 80s, which may be incomprehensible to the Ukrainian viewer

Conclusion:

“Air” is an excellent and not boring movie, although its description and structure may suggest the opposite. It turns a sad tie into a triumph of human genius. And watching such an extravaganza is a pleasure for all 112 minutes of the time recording