When Michelle met Barack
Southside With You
(out of 4) Starring Tika Sumpter and Parker Sawyers. Directed by Richard Tanne. 84 minutes. Opens Friday at the Varsity, Cineplex Yonge-Dundas and Oakville Winston Churchill. PG
As far as first dates go, Michelle Robinson (insisting it was not a date because of workplace optics) and Barack Obama (who was determined to convince her otherwise) had a great one that scorching Chicago day in the summer of ’89.
Writer-director Richard Tanne presents a Richard Linklater-style examination of a day and evening together, where two people in their 20s — she a lawyer at a downtown firm and he a summer associate at the same shop — slowly come to know each other.
Tanne knitted stories together from details previously published about the Obamas’ courtship.
After he picks her up in a rusty Datsun with part of the passenger floor missing, they pack a lot in. Their conversation ranges from TV shows (her family watched The Brady Bunch; his Good Times) to the history of African-American works at the Art Institute of Chicago. They delve into the personal with parents, expectations, ambition and racism, before debating Stevie Wonder’s best album over beers and seeing Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. They even argue. And yes, they kiss.
Tika Sumpter ( Ride Along 2) and Parker Sawyers ( Survivor) play their roles well and speech patterns and physical resemblance to the future White House residents are often uncanny.
Occasionally Sumpter, who also produced the film along with singer John Legend, is a bit too crisp in capturing Robinson’s carefully enunciations. It’s not a distraction.
As for the invitation that brought them together, Obama initially invited Robinson to join him at a south side community meeting, where he was greeted like a hero, with future oration and diplomatic skills on full display. Can’t blame a guy for using his best material on a first non-date. Also opening: Manhattan Night at the Carlton and Ixcanul at TIFF Bell Lightbox.