The undertow of history is all around: “Something else is pulling me,” says Obama. They are both in the process of forming themselves, measuring their own ambitions. “I’m tired of being two different people,” Michelle says of being a black woman in a white world. Sumpter and Sawyers both, against the odds, evade the trappings of impression and give natural, intimate performances about two outsiders on their way to becoming Beltway insiders. Debate over the divisive ending of “Do the Right Thing” (when Mookie throws a trash can through Sal’s pizzeria) engulfs them outside the theater. Names of people killed on the streets of Chicago adorn a wall they stride past. Barack is reading Toni Morrison’s “Song of Solomon” before he leaves to pick up Michelle. They drive a little and walk a little through Chicago’s Southside, but they’re also passing through a larger cultural atmosphere. The entire film centers on their first date in 1989, where they visited an art exhibition, attended a community meeting and watched a film. “Southside With You” is, in a way, a portrait of a president-to-be as a young John Cusack.īut the film was no mere date movie it was Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing.” And their stops include an African American art exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago and a community meeting in a church (something incorporated here from a later date) where “Brother Barack” flashes his speech-making skills. President Barack Obama's younger days, 'Southside With You' is a romantic drama that focuses on the beginning of Barack and Michelle Obama's relationship. President Barack Obama (Parker Sawyers) and lawyer Michelle Robinson (Tika Sumpter). ![]() Though the movie settles into a Richard Linklater-like series of conversations and encounters, it begins with the blare of Janet Jackson’s “Miss You Much” on the car radio and the unmistakable feel of an ‘80s movie. Watch Southside with You Online Free On 123Movies, 123 MoviesThe movie depicts the fateful first date of future U.S. Tanne and his excellent actors (Parker Sawyers as Barack, Tika Sumpter as Michelle) compress into a single day something broader and more meaningful than White House trivia. Nuanced and charming, “Southside With You” is a sunny, strolling odyssey through African-American life in 1989, filtered through two future icons as they navigate the world around them and their place in it. Are we itching closer to a rom-com about the courtship between Gerald and Betty? Or, heaven help us, “Pizza Night With Bill and Hillary”?Īnd yet Tanne’s film is no mere First Couple valentine. Contemplating further such forays into presidential romance is indeed frightful. But overall, it's worth it to be the third wheel, so to speak.Writer-director Richard Tanne’s feature film debut “Southside With You” views history through an unlikely, heart-shaped prism: the first date between Barack Obama and Michelle Robinson. And sometimes, given that the two characters, after all, eventually become the president and first lady, it can feel like you're watching Mom and Dad go on their first date. Sometimes watching Southside with You does feel a bit like eavesdropping on a conversation that's better left private, and the pace can get frustratingly slow. Sawyers has nearly all of the president's mannerisms down: His walk has the confident grace his cadence, the oratorical patterns of the actual president. Like the Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight series, this movie depends on its stars' verbal and mental dexterity, and they don't disappoint. Kudos to Sumter and Sawyers, who - in the way they depict everything from how Barack lights a cigarette to how Michelle defuses an argument - reveal both the strengths and the challenges of this relationship. Southside with You is full of interesting dialog and discussions that really follow the natural arc of conversations. ![]() ![]() One of the biggest pleasures of this romantic drama is watching two conversational and intellectual heavyweights go toe-to-toe on their first date (or rather, non-date).
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