Recognizing why she was averse to Good Times in the first place, Barack reflects on how the initially stereotypical character J.J. Michelle dismisses the question, noting that her family was more into The Brady Bunch. Tanne then stages a wonderfully written moment where Barack asks Michelle for her opinion of the TV show Good Times. Picking her up three hours earlier than necessary, Barack convinces the seemingly annoyed Michelle to accompany him to the Art Institute, where there’s a new exhibit of African art on display. At the time, Michelle refused to call the outing a date, but it sort of became one - and Tanne does a wonderful job imagining how Barack would subtly make it so. Southside centers on the infamous summer day in 1989 when Barack Obama, then a Harvard law student interning at the firm of Sidley Austin, took his work colleague, Michelle Robinson ( Tika Sumpter), to a community meeting in the South Side of Chicago. ![]() Read the whole review at Barack Obama ( Parker Sawyers ) pulls out a cigarette and sits back inside his car with the rusted hole in the floor as the radio begins to play Janet Jackson’s "Miss You Much," you instantly realize that Richard Tanne ’s Southside With You might transcend its skeptical billing as "the Barack and Michelle Obama date movie." It’s a love story for sure, but the drama - which debuted at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival on Sunday - has a lot to say about the events that shaped the 44th president of the United States and first lady we know today. President, but simply as two people in that awkward phase between true adolescence and true adulthood who are just trying to figure themselves and the world they live in out. Linklater has returned to his characters in ten year intervals with sequels in 20, but with Southside With You writer/director Richard Tanne takes notes largely from that initial meeting treating his characters not as the future Mr. Chronicling that magic of how perfect strangers can connect so intimately over a short period of time and analyzing that indescribable feeling that creates a strong, trusting bond between two people-a bond that will inevitably turn to love-Linklater's films provide a nice template for how to both simply and intricately weave together the innocence of falling for someone and the complex emotions that will inevitably come with circumstance. If you haven't seen Linklater's trilogy that chronicles a couple meeting and spending a single night together that was little more than that in 1995 it is the epitome of characters walking and talking. It's a clichéd comparison at this point, but an apt one as the majority of Southside With You is filled by our two main characters walking and talking. And so, yes, Southside With You is the story of the first date between the now President and First Lady of these United States of America via the lens of something akin to director Richard Linklater's Before trilogy. Or is she? It just so happens this young, summer associate is a hotshot from Harvard named Barack Obama (Parker Sawyers). ![]() As the lone African-American woman working at this law firm Robinson has had to work doubly hard in order to gain the respect she desires and she's not about to let the first charismatic, smooth-talking black guy convince her to undo all that hard work by going on a date with him. It is 1989 and Michelle Robinson (Tika Sumpter) is getting set to accompany the summer associate she is advising at the law firm she works for to a town meeting to address local community issues. ![]() From the opening scene Southside With You sets the tone of a late summer day on the streets of Chicago at the tail end of that decade we've all suddenly become enamored with nostalgia for. ![]() Especially when it's "Miss You Much," coupled with eighties inspired pink text flashing across the screen. Any movie that decides to play Janet Jackson over its opening credits is off to a good start.
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