In Screenwriting 100, the first thing you learn is that the main character changes. They end the story in a far different place, personality-wise and character-wise from where they started. “Your character’s gotta have an arc.” is what the teachers say. I say it too.
Except for AIR.
At the beginning, the main character always has an interior character problem that they solve by the end.
Except for AIR
In A FEW GOOD MEN, Tom Cruise worships his dead father, who was Attorney General of the United States… compared to his father, Tom feels he’s a mediocre attorney. At the end, after he grows up, he faces Jack Nicholson in court, the most terrifying nemesis ever… (who his father would not dare put on the stand). Only because Tom changed is he able to defeat his antagonist in the climactic battle.
Unlike the Matt Damon character in AIR.
In CASABLANCA, Humphrey Bogart starts as selfish — he only wants his old girlfriend back. Once he gets her back, he changes into a do-gooder and gives her up to her husband to help win the war.
In TOY STORY, Woody wants to be Andy’s favorite and tries to destroy Buzz all the way until the end when he’s on the back bumper of Andy’s van and they’re driving away… about to leave Buzz — stuck in a fence, rocket strapped to his back — behind forever… and, oh my, Woody gives up what he’s always wanted and jumps off the bumper to save his friend. Woody changes!
Not Matt Damon in AIR!
I also teach that a character needs a work life and a personal life. Matt Damon has zero personal life. It wasn’t until I saw a still from the film (after watching the movie), that I noticed he was wearing a wedding ring. That’s the only evidence he had a wife. As I recall, she’s never mentioned. We never even go inside his house.
All that character does is 1.) come up with an idea and 2.) spend the rest of the movie fighting everyone around him to bring his grand plan to fruition. Matt Damon’s in conflict with everybody. Everybody! Except, maybe Michael Jordan’s father… and Michael Jordan, because he’s not in the movie.
Matt Damon is who he is at the beginning and that’s who he stays until the end. A fighter. A man with a revolutionary idea, willing to take gigantic risks to prove he’s right.
He learns nothing new about himself. He doesn’t have a ghost. He doesn’t have a flaw. No wound. He just has guts and determination and lots and lots of opponents.
And it works!!
However… and this is a GIANT however…
AIR is not Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s first rodeo.
AIR is not the first movie Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have been in. It’s not the first movie they’ve produced. By making a movie with no character change, they broke a MASSIVE rule of storytelling. As of this writing, Matt Damon has 97 acting, 32 producing, and 4 writing (their first script won them Academy Awards) credits. Ben Affleck has 127 credits. Two Oscars.
When you’ve done a lot of work and been recognized for it and people knock on your door in the middle of the night to ask you to work for them, then, and only then, can you break massive rules.
Until that day, and I hope it comes, make damn sure your main character changes.
Your Screenplay Sucks! 
Forrest Gump, Nic Cage in National Treasure, Indiana Jones, Big Lebowski, Ferris Bueller
Dion,
100% correct! In FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF, Ferris’s buddy, Cameron does all the changing. I hadn’t thought about the others, but they’re good examples. How could the Dude possibly change? At the beginning, he’s already 100% perfect.
Will
If Cameron was the one to change in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off- is it safe to say that it was Affleck’s character is the one that changed? I feel as though the answer may be yes.
Absolutely. The answer is for sure yes. And it was Our Hero who crammed him into that change.