Barack Obama, who turned 28 that summer, married Michelle in 1992 – three years after their first date.
Advertisement
Parker Sawyers and Tika Sumpter star as the now president and first lady, and all executive produced by Oscar and Grammy victor John Legend. Zeroing in on Sawyers, the ABC co-host offered an Access Hollywood-style softball: “You say it was Barack Obama who actually inspired you to get into acting?”
In fact, we know more dates are in the offing – and “Southside” feels much more consequential than your average first-date movie – because we know what follows for Michelle Robinson and her date/not-date, Barack Obama.
Over the hours they spend together – which Michelle initially insists is not a date – the two attend an Ernie Barnes art exhibition, a community meeting, a screening of Spike Lee’s movie “Do The Right Thing”, have drinks and eat ice cream as they discuss their lives, ambitions and fears.
Their contrasting styles are evident in the opening moments, in which Robinson checks and rechecks her clothes while Obama slaps on a shirt, smokes a cigarette and hops into his rusted-out auto, with Janet Jackson’s “Miss You Much” blaring on the radio as he heads off to the first date with the woman he will eventually marry.
Written and directed by Richard Tanne, the movie was a surprise hit at the Sundance Film Festival. “And then when he walked in the room and we did our screen test it was surreal and he walked out and we were all kind of quiet like we knew it was him, I was like hire him”, actress Tika Sumpter said.
Parker Sawyers, the actor who plays Barack in the film, said he started off with a strong impersonation of the president, but then let the mannerisms and speech inflections of his character come naturally. But it’s also because, unlike the vast majority of supposed love stories, “Southside With You” is a romance that makes it clear why the lovers are falling for each other. Later, the two momentarily clasp hands as they watch a harrowing scene in Do The Right Thing, where a black man dies after being placed in a chokehold by a white policeman.
Advertisement
“I think it is a love story for Chicago”, Legend told ABC7 Chicago at Thursday’s premiere.
