When we first see Barack Obama in Southside With You, he isn’t looking very presidential — chain smoking in a tank top, and rocking to Janet Jackson while driving a beat-up Datsun hatchback.
It was the summer of 1989 in Chicago, just before he spent an afternoon with a young lawyer named Michelle that would change his life forever.
With all of the potential pitfalls in depicting a pivotal moment in the personal life of a sitting president, this low-budget romance scores by keeping its focus simple and its ambitions modest.
As the film opens, law-firm intern Barack (Parker Sawyers) is an outgoing smooth talker whose daylong excursion with an associate, Michelle Robinson (Tika Sawyers), didn’t exactly begin as a first date. But as they crisscross the city from an art exhibition to lunch in the park to a community rally to dinner and a movie, their bond grows closer.
The conversation flows from backgrounds to ambitions to culture. Initially reluctant to let her guard down, she is won over by his easygoing confidence and intelligence, which matches her own.
The screenplay by rookie director Richard Tanne probably embellishes some of the details along the way, but that’s not important. The film succeeds in putting a working-class face on larger-than-life figures and making them relatable regardless of the political affiliation of moviegoers.
It wouldn’t be as noteworthy if not for the real-life names and faces, yet Tanne’s approach makes it more than a simple curiosity piece ripe for tabloid gossip, as the evocative depiction of its gritty urban setting provides the backdrop for some high-minded discourse.
Despite some heavy-handed tendencies, the film sidesteps hagiography and steers clear of politics for the most part, although eventually it provides insight into the foundation of Obama’s political beliefs and his grassroots beginnings as a charismatic and persuasive orator and motivator. Regardless of its innocence, some viewers will probably read more into it than is actually there.
The script is heartfelt even if it lacks subtlety, and conceptually, it might work better on stage. Still, the chemistry between the actors seems relaxed and genuine, with Sawyers finding depth outside of his uncanny physical resemblance to the commander in chief.
More charming than controversial, Southside With You is hardly a breakthrough, but it’s a fun way to speculate.
