“Will Michael Jordan agree to sign a shoe deal with Nike, so their basketball division can survive?”
This is essentially the main dramatic question in the recent movie Air.
The big negative stakes if the story goal isn’t reached is that Nike might not do basketball shoes anymore and Matt Damon might lose his job there.
Hmm.
I wouldn’t say this is a bad movie. And a lot of people apparently enjoyed it.
But I will say I found myself thinking “I’m not sure I care enough” throughout.
And I’m an NBA fan! Who watched all of the Jordan documentary The Last Dance. It’s not a topic that’s of no interest to me.
But knowing nothing about Matt Damon’s personal life and having no reason to bond with him other than his desire to get Michael Jordan and design a shoe around him… which I knew would end up happening… and even if it didn’t, would that matter so much? I had trouble being emotionally invested.
What does this say about the challenges in general of relying on “workplace stakes” in a script?
I’ve written about this before in regards to the movie I, Tonya. Which was not about whether Tonya Harding could fulfill her ice skating aspirations. It was about her difficult personal life and all the challenges she faced there.
This is usually the way to go, with series as well. It’s more about the characters and what they have going on personally that’s difficult and conflict-filled, and their emotions about that, and what they’re doing to try to resolve those things, in a web of conflict others. In an ongoing problematic situation with endlessly repeatable potential.
My opinion is that audiences tend to not care that much about watching a series or movie where someone tries to do well at a certain professional or artistic goal as the primary dramatic focus. Even if they get to the big-time at it. (And the more successful they are, the less compelling it might be.) Unless there’s something much bigger going on. As in The Dropout.
With both Air and I, Tonya the audience knows the historical ending, which makes it extra hard to be on the edge of your seat about just the “workplace stakes.” We know Michael Jordan signed with Nike and the Air Jordan was a huge success. So there’s not a ton of suspense there. (We also know the end of Tonya Harding’s public story.)
I’m not saying there’s not some fun in watching the process of the underdog Nike woo Jordan through his mother, and the executive there who saw more greatness in Jordan than others did.
But why should people care if Damon loses this job? We end the movie not knowing anything about his life outside this one particular workplace goal. Why he wants it, what it represents, what he has at risk. Now I’m not saying if we knew about those things it would make a great movie. I’m saying that great movies usually engage audiences around one of a few high-stakes and primal human problems that I once listed. And none of those problems are “hang onto their jobs.”
Audiences generally feel a character can always find another job and another way to make money. So it’s rare that the main story goal of a movie (or series) has only those stakes.
In my book The Idea (and its online course) I talk about rare exceptions like Jerry Maguire, Working Girl or The Pursuit of Happyness, which deal with a greater injustice, a greater moral triumph, a greater impact on the world and/or more of a dire situation generally with other stakes beyond keeping a job.
But would the world be truly worse off if Michael Jordan had signed with Adidas? Much as we might admire him and his shoe as iconic, who really would’ve been affected by that?
Similar to Barbie, one might even argue that this is a movie about a corporation, celebrating its success and even promoting it. Not that I’m against advertising or great products. But when the human cost is this limited… I do start to wonder if there’s really enough going on there.
Of course the movie did get made and was successful. And the script, which was written on spec, did make it onto the annual Blacklist, despite (from my quick glance at it) taking a similar “workplace-only” approach to the topic. So maybe I can’t say my usual thing about how a movie getting made and even finding an audience does not mean its script would work to advance a writer’s career if they had written it on spec.
Perhaps public (and film industry) fascination with seeing behind the curtain of how something we all know about came into being can outweigh what I’m talking about.
And maybe Air is an example of what we should root for more movies to be like. At least it’s not a sequel or a superhero movie! (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) Like Barbie, it focuses on pre-existing IP and a subject of great public interest, to justify the cost of making and marketing the film and to make it “safer” for those financing it. And it does so in some original way — not just a cookie-cutter movie that’s clearly designed only to make money.
But somehow I still feel fine about my usual practice of advising writer clients not to rely on workplace stakes (i.e. losing a job or income source) as the main thing an audience is meant to invest in.
Unless, perhaps, that workplace is something this well-known and potentially fascinating to the masses.
But maybe even then… 🙂
Do you have a different (or complementary opinion)? Feel free to comment below…
I think anybody who has lost a job would be deeply invested in the story. In fact, after the pandemic, that target audience increased. It is not everywhere that getting another job is easy. More specifically, getting a job that you know you are good at is harder. Damon’s character sincerely wants to change Jordan’s life and risks everything in that pursuit against company policy. No one is on his side so the audience is drawn to care. This is established early in the story.
The film also banks on people who are familiar with the boundaries that were broken with the Nike deal, considering the success of The Last Dance. I loved the fact that Jordan was masked.
I know what you mean. The more I write the more I value personal high, universal stakes for a protagonist. Extraction 2 had a similar problem. With Air, we’ve seen probably tens of thousands of films dealing with black oppression that it creates a law of diminishing returns with those stakes. Nothing wrong with black oppression films; they are great. But this thematic stake has come to permeate almost every film of the past 10 years which is great, but I’m curious to see stakes about other topics.
I respectfully disagree in that the stakes were much bigger — only maybe the issue is that they weren’t revealed until the very end? (Mini spoiler ahead.) When Michael’s mother negotiated to get him a percentage of his shoe sales because they were using his name, she broke huge ground for all future athletes. Matt Damon’s character knew Michael’s true worth, but his mother knew it, too. In a way it became a true David vs. Goliath story, in which a small town black woman bested a huge corporation. Of course the deal was still great for Nike, but they were forced to leverage power in a way no athletic corporation had before, and all have had to do since.
Thanks Katie – yes, for me, the fact that those aren’t revealed until the end makes all the difference. When I talk “stakes” I’m talking what’s set up in the first act that’s meant to make the audience care that the main story goal is achieved and feel that it will be so terrible if it isn’t achieved. I don’t disagree that it’s a cool element in the third act though that makes it all seem more historically meaningful and such… but only at the end… 🙂
Hey Erik. The question of stakes came up for me with Oppenheimer, as well. With the whole subplot in the 50s of his interrogation and trial (the B&W sequences) the big thing that Oppenheimer stood to lose was… his security clearance? And not while he was actively working for the government on the incredibly high stakes bomb project, but after he’s basically retired. If he loses… he can no longer work for the government? Won’t be able to travel overseas? Why is that such a big deal? I can think of several ways that it could have been given more importance, but Nolan didn’t seem interested in those ideas, in favor of a big reveal with Robert Downey Jr’s character, which arguably also lacked stakes.
Nolan’s filmmaking skills kept me interested to the very end, but I was left with that gnawing question about stakes. Fwiw. Did you see Oppenheimer?
Not yet but it sounds like I would probably agree with you! 🙂
Interesting comments I won’t disagree with. I haven’t seen it yet. I’ve been boycotting Amazon for some time now. But I was very disappointed in the choice of subject for Affleck and Damon’s new company’s first film, for similar reasons (i.e., so what?). Will look into your 8 Story Problems post, and be less disappointed I can’t see it for now!
I liked the movie, but had exactly the same reaction watching it: why should I care?