BARACK & MICHELLE
‘Southside’ captures what their first date might have been like
Watching “Southside With You” makes you feel like a bug on the wall when two people destined to make history together fall in love. It’s charming. It’s intimate. And it’s idealistic, which is to say it’s also not entirely accurate.
But that’s OK, because filmmaker Richard Tanne got the basic outline of the courtship of Barack Obama and Michelle Robinson correct, and he wasn’t out to capture history. He also took pains to make a film that’s not partisan or pointed, although it is pretty clear he sees the president and first lady as heroes. But so do a lot of people. In the end, Tanne has given us a movie that is warm and watchable without overdoing it.
Actors Parker Sawyers (Barack) and Tika Sumpter (Michelle) do a solid job of helping turn what could’ve been some sort of historical reenactment into a real love story, although it took about half the movie for Sawyers to go from seemingly doing an impersonation to getting more into his character.
The film covers the summer day in 1989 in Chicago that the Obamas, who worked at the same law firm, went on their first date. Tanne reportedly collected as much information on the day as he could from books, news reports and various media interviews with the couple. The movie events and real life have a few things in common. Barack Obama and Michelle Robinson did go to the Art Institute of Chicago that day. They reportedly went to see Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing.” And they did have ice cream outside of Baskin-Robbins, where they shared their first kiss.
It was up to Tanne to imagine the rest, based on what he knows about the first couple, what he thinks he knows and what he wants to know.
In “Southside With You,” Obama is doing a summer stint at a Chicago law firm, where his future wife Michelle is an associate and also his advisor. Driving a beat-up old Sentra — with a rusty hole in the floorboard — the constantly smoking student has convinced Michelle to go to a community group meeting with him, part of drive to get a community center built in a gang-infested neighborhood. Reports say that meeting did happen early in the pair’s relationship, though not necessarily that day.
At this point, Michelle still lives with her family and is just as ambitious and outspoken as her summer protege. She constantly insists it isn’t a date, even as Obama fudges about the meeting time so he can take her to an art gallery and have lunch beforehand.
The movie has an easy pace, as the two swap life stories, talk philosophy, racism, the challenges they face in their careers and occasionally banter playfully. It’s exactly the kind of running conversation one can imagine them having. Not surprisingly, Obama comes off as a bit condescending, extremely confident and perhaps even “smooth,” as Michelle calls him more than once.
Tanne obviously had to take liberties, and he occasionally goes too far at times. For example, his version of Obama has daddy issues and isn’t afraid to get emotional about them on a first date. And Michelle isn’t shy about diagnosing him and prescribing remedies.
Tanne lightens up on the snappy chit-chat during the movie’s last 10 or 15 minutes, letting the film glide to a close with a sense of sweetness. Given what we’ve come to know about these two people over the past decade, his scenario seems entirely plausible. And I have a feeling that, if and when the Obamas see it, they won’t mind this version at all.