Dave Schilling
Southside With You is the
latest in a long line of presidential biopics. But since it is simply an
account of the Obamas’ first date, with little reference to their illustrious
future, how will it rate alongside the likes of Young Mr Lincoln and PT 109?
Initial spark between two
interesting people ... Tika Sumpter as Michelle Robinson and Parker Sawyers as
Barack Obama in Southside With You. Photograph: Pat Scola/AP
If Hollywood is to be
believed, the most fascinating parts of a life are the rise and the fall — the
ascent up the mountain and the inevitable tumble back to sea level. The middle
bit — all the stuff about how one copes with the mundane reality of one’s fate
— is less travelled territory. Look no further than the superhero origin story.
Despite how often moviegoers have seen Batman’s parents gunned down in an
alley, no shortage of films and TV shows choose to dramatise it yet again. But
long before capes and masks were dominating cinemas, the film industry was
giving audiences another kind of myth: the presidential origin story, of which
Barack Obama films Southside With You and Barry are the latest entries in the
genre.
Americans love a good
presidential biopic, even ones for those commanders-in-chief who might not
immediately jump to mind as worthy of the treatment. In 1944, 20th Century Fox
released Wilson, a film depicting the 28th president Woodrow Wilson, who
shepherded the country through the previous war. The Gorgeous Hussy, a 1936
film about Andrew Jackson, was a fictionalised account of the Petticoat affair,
a scandal involving the wife of a cabinet member.
Far more typical are the
films that seek to canonise a former or sitting president. John Ford’s Young Mr
Lincoln – like Wilson, released by Fox, though five years earlier – is a
lightly factual origin story about Abraham Lincoln. PT 109 – which hit cinemas
five months before the assassination of its real-life inspiration, John F
Kennedy – took inspiration from JFK’s command of a navy boat during the second
world war. In both cases, these films seek to build a throughline from the
lessons learned in an early conflict to the rise to power. JFK discovers how to
lead men through crisis. Lincoln learns fairness and compassion by coming to
the aid of two brothers wrongfully accused of murder.
Barry and Southside With
You both fall squarely in the hagiographic mould, though far from the theatrics
of war or life-and-death consequences. Southside dramatises the first date
between Barack and eventual first lady Michelle Obama. Barry, directed by Vice
on HBO host and documentarian Vikram Gandhi, depicts Barack’s struggles to
adapt to living in New York City in the early 1980s.
Southside director Richard
Tanne attempted to make a film that was both about Barack and Michelle Obama,
but also a film that could stand on its own as a romance. “My job was just to
build a credible love story, but the dramatic irony of the film is we all know
what they went on to accomplish, the history that they made, however not
everybody feels the same way about them,” he explains over the phone.
Southside covers only a
single day in the life of these two people, rather than the biographical sprawl
of Oliver Stone’s Nixon or W, works that are significantly more critical of
their subjects than the average film about a president. The film begins before
the date, as Michelle Robinson and Barack Obama – colleagues at a law firm in
Chicago – get ready, chat with their parents and express trepidation over the
upcoming rendezvous. Is it a date? Michelle is convinced it isn’t. Barack’s
mother asks if the new girl is white. She isn’t. Tanne plays up the initial
friction, casting some doubt on the relationship, even if the outcome is
predetermined.
“Michelle was very picky and very selective
and guys didn’t last that long,” he says. “I extrapolated from that that here
was this 25-year-old woman whose intelligence was boundless. She skipped second
and third grade and was already a second-year associate at the biggest firm in
Chicago after graduating Harvard Law.” Michelle’s prodigious talent, her
success to that point in her career, and her keen understanding of the
unsavoury aspects of office politics make her initial scepticism over dating a
subordinate understandable. “She was well ahead of where Barack was
professionally at that time,” Tanne says.
Michelle is played by Tika
Sumpter, who has popped up in a variety of high-profile projects – from a Madea
movie and Ride Along 2 to the James Brown biopic Get On Up. She was the first
actor cast and is also a producer on Southside. The search for Barack was far
more complicated. “We read about 30 Los Angeles-based actors and we got tapes
sent in from elsewhere around the country,” Tanne says. “Everyone we read was a
terrific actor, but they weren’t quite Obama. They couldn’t get the president
out of their minds. I just needed them to be a guy trying to get a girl.”
The role eventually went to
newcomer Parker Sawyers, who does a remarkable job capturing the essence of one
of the most famous men in the world. “I did the audition, but it was a
straight-on impersonation. It was not nuanced, it wasn’t even very good
acting,” says Sawyers. “I didn’t hear anything back, and then it came back
around in April 2015. I spoke to Rich for 20 minutes. He says: ‘Dude, drop the
impersonation. Just play yourself. Just be you. No Barack.’”
Oliver Stone’s Nixon,
starring Anthony Hopkins (left) is considerably more critical of its subject
than most presidential biopics. Photograph: Allstar/Buena Vista
The note worked and Sawyers
got the part. “I’m sure President Obama, when we don’t see him, acts a
different way.” That’s the trick of playing a celebrity before they were a
celebrity. They are fundamentally not the same person that they are today –
less aware of people watching them, unaffected by the spotlight and significantly
less performative. Sawyers and Sumpter don’t really tip their hats to the
Obamas’ future role in American history until key moments in the film’s final
act, but even then, it’s all quite subtle and never distracts from Tanne’s
“credible love story”.
The most curious aspect of
both Barry (which is to be released globally by Netflix) and Southside is that
they are both coming out while Obama is still in office, which gives them
another thing in common with PT 109. I tell Tanne that I was initially put off
by the idea of a film about the Obamas coming so soon after they ascended to
the White House. The history is too recent, I say. Of course, it’s not that
recent, as the first date was over 20 years ago. Stripped of any political or
historical significance, the film is simply a clever way to tell one of the
most common stories there is: the initial spark of love between two interesting
people.
“Back in 2007, I was really
taken by them as a couple, the way they looked at each other, the way they
flirted,” Tanne says. “It’s a very authentic, sexy, and vibrant connection
between them. I find that to be rare in people that you meet, everyday folks,
and even rarer in public figures.” How difficult it would be to pull off this
movie about most other recent presidents. The Obamas are unique in that their
affection pops off the screen whenever they share a stage.
I ask Tanne how Obama’s
final presidential legacy might affect the way his movie is perceived in the
future. Will it be a Young Mr Lincoln-esque work that spawns an enduring myth?
Or will it be viewed with a sceptical eye, the way something like Wilson is
consumed, as the public begins to sour on the Obama era? He pauses. Real
history, he thinks, “shades the movie. As the legacy evolves, I can imagine that
audiences will see the film differently, as the pendulum swings one way and
then the other way, there’s going to be constantly changing perceptions of the
movie as relates to his legacy.” What can never be undone is the barrier Barack
and Michelle broke, and the impact that will have on the US, for decades to
come.
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