There are a good few ways to dramatise Michael Jordan’s landmark $2.5m sponsorship deal with Nike. One is telling the story of a young basketball rookie on the brink of legend status. Another is telling the story of his mother, Deloris Jordan, who refused to see her son exploited by corporate America. Air, Ben Affleck’s Eighties-set sports drama, chooses a third option: to platform the boardroom of largely white marketing men who successfully transformed a human being into a corporate slogan. It’s the least compelling perspective imaginable.
The success of Air depends on how willing audiences are to discard Jordan as a person in favour of Jordan as an idea. This is an individual even the film refers to as the “greatest competitive athlete in history” – but who does not speak, or even appear beyond the occasional glimpse of the back of his head (or that of stand-in Damian Delano Young). Affleck received Jordan’s blessing to make the film, and upheld his request to cast Viola Davis as his mother; the director has also claimed Jordan’s absence in the film is out of respect for the largeness of his legacy.
