{"id":1402,"date":"2016-05-15T01:34:58","date_gmt":"2016-05-15T01:34:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kevindkinsey.com\/?p=1402"},"modified":"2017-06-22T01:47:13","modified_gmt":"2017-06-22T01:47:13","slug":"southside-with-you-barack-and-michelle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevindkinsey.com\/?p=1402","title":{"rendered":"“Southside With You”…Barack and Michelle!"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a drama about Barack Obama and Michelle Robinson\u2019s first date, in Chicago, in the summer of 1989. It stars Parker Sawyers as the twenty-eight-year-old Barack, a Harvard Law student and summer associate at a\"Image\u00a0Chicago law firm, and Tika Sumpter, who also co-produced the film, as the twenty-five-year-old Michelle, a Harvard Law graduate and a second-year associate at the same firm. The results don\u2019t resemble a stunt; far from it. \u201cSouthside with You,\u201d is a fully realized, intricately imagined, warmhearted, sharp-witted, and perceptive drama, one that sticks close to its protagonists while resonating quietly but grandly with the sweep of a historical epic.\u00a0This date took in an art gallery, sandwiches in the park, a political meeting and a trip to the movies \u2013 culminating in the legendary first kiss on a bench outside the Baskin-Robbins ice cream store, now commemorated by a plaque.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"ImageParker Sawyers is an eerily close likeness for the lanky, conceited, cigarette-smoking young Barack, a Harvard law student doing a summer associate programme at the prestigious a Chicago firm where he is mentored by beautiful, smart Michelle, played with charm and self-possession by Tika Sumpter.<\/p>\n

The film has taken the accepted version of events and imagined the dialogue, ingeniously crafting a traditional romance within a walking-pace, real-time narrative, complete with meet-cute, breakup and makeup. Michelle is unimpressed by Barack\u2019s swagger, disconcerted by the hole in the floor of his old car and not exactly delighted by the cigarettes he is smoking, though doesn\u2019t mention it.<\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/figcaption>They talk about Michelle\u2019s hard-working idealistic parents, about Barack\u2019s troubled background and his drunk dad and imagines a later scene in a bar where she challenges him directly on not facing up to his emotions. They talk about their ambitions and Barack irritates her with a misjudged, patronizing homily about how she\u2019s obviously not fulfilled at work. One subject they do not discuss is whether a woman should give up her career to be a wife and mom.\u00a0When Barack returns, a tense four-way conversation begins, and Barack smoothly finesses this boss\u2019s objection to the violence that concludes the film, suggesting that it was a safety valve and that the aggressor would have anticipated the existence of an \u201cinsurance policy\u201d to minimize damage. That cleverly imagined scene puts on show Obama\u2019s political acumen, diplomacy and instinct for negotiating with the white world. And it demonstrates all the nuances of race, class, gender politics and professional prestige far more interestingly and effectively than the usual \u201cracism\u201d moment.<\/p>\n

The road to the White House starts here and unfold a story of tw\"Imageo young people who\u2019s commitment to themselves and to the values\u00a0<\/span>of the american dream will ultimately come to fruition in having Barack and Michelle Obama becoming the 44th President and First Lady of the United States and first African-Americans to realize this dream. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a drama about Barack Obama and Michelle Robinson\u2019s first date, in Chicago, in the summer of 1989. It stars Parker Sawyers as the twenty-eight-year-old Barack, a Harvard Law student and summer associate at a\u00a0Chicago law firm, and Tika Sumpter, who also co-produced the film, as the twenty-five-year-old Michelle, a Harvard Law graduate and a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevindkinsey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevindkinsey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevindkinsey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevindkinsey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevindkinsey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1402"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/kevindkinsey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1535,"href":"https:\/\/kevindkinsey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1402\/revisions\/1535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevindkinsey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevindkinsey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevindkinsey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}