'Southside With You' a sweet take on Obamas' first date
Obama haters will hate "Southside With You," just because it humanizes the pre-First Couple and allows them to win us over with sincerity, optimism, first-date awkwardness and personal flaws.
Obama lovers will love "Southside With You" for the same reasons.
Movie lovers will appreciate "Southside With You" as a pure, simple, adorable romance in which every narrative strand connects up in a single moment climaxed by a kiss.
This insightfully written, tightly directed and superbly acted drama captures an adult first date's magical discoveries, growing attractions and the slowly earned melding of minds and hearts (plus the melting of ice cream later).
The story follows a young Barack Obama (Parker Sawyers) on his first date with Michelle Robinson (Tika Sumpter) on a hot, summer day in 1989 Chicago.
Oops. Strike that.
"This is not a date!" Michelle tells him, and she means it.
She works as an attorney for the Sidley Austin firm and as the adviser to Barack, attached as a summer "associate." They can't be dating.
The hot summer day begins with the two preparing for their non-date to attend a Chicago church where Southsiders gather to build a long overdue community center.
Barack, a chain-smoker, picks up an apprehensive Michelle in his old beater car with the passenger-side floor rusted out. She can see the highway under her feet.
We suspect Barack has mentally filed a dissenting opinion about Michelle's "not a date" verdict.
Eventually, he fesses up to his true agenda.
The church meeting takes place much later than he told her. So now, they'll just have to spend time walking through Chicago, visiting the Art Institute, watching Spike Lee's new movie "Do the Right Thing" and warily sharing their guarded views and feelings.
Not since "My Dinner With Andre" has there been such a smart, empathic indie drama centered around two characters doing nothing but talking to each other.
They talk about their lives, their ideals, the importance of compromise, what it means to be black in a white-centered culture. Their disappointments. Their dreams. How their fathers impacted their lives.
Director/writer Richard Tanne fashions an unschmaltzy, 21st-century "They Way They Were" set against the backdrop of the Windy City (not Toronto or some other municipal tax-break haven).
Sawyers and Sumpter nimbly exchange Tanne's boiled-down-to-the-bone dialogue in two of the best film performances of 2016.
Wisely, Sumpter and Sawyers suggest the future First Couple without resorting to imitations or caricatures.
Sawyers nails the future president's persona, hinting at, yet never fully exploiting, his signature professorial pauses.
Sumpter conjures up the future First Lady's regal sense of confidence and her sharp, intellectual heft, as well as her wit.
"They did look good on Dumbo," she says, looking at Barack's ears.
“Southside With You”
★ ★ ★ ½
Starring: Tika Sumpter, Parker Sawyers, Vanessa Bell Calloway
Directed by: Richard Tanne
Other: A Roadside Attractions release. Rated PG-13 for language, smoking, a drug reference, a violent image. 84 minutes