Genre: Drama
Directed: Richard Tanne
Stars: Tika Sumpter, Parker Sawyers, Taylar Fondren, Preston Tate Jr., Donald Paul, Angel Knight, Tony E. Brown, Vanessa Bell Calloway, Deborah Geffner, Donn C. Harper, Jerod Haynes, Tom McElroy
Production: Roadside Attractions
The benefit of making a biographical film about a long deceased statesman or woman is we can lionize them at will without having the propensity of sounding political. Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), Wilson (1944), John Adams (2008) all concerned themselves with figures that were long-gone and if controversy was to be had it was a low murmur at best. On the opposite side of the spectrum there are the maladroit political screeds. Your Iron Lady's (2011) and Primary Color's (1998); movies which are to varying degrees satirical admonishments and ad hominum attacks.
Exhibit W. |
Presidential material right here! |
Which is just as well because the script is about as heavy-handed and clunky as a Sunday school sermon. Within the first five minutes we know that we're going to spend our time with interesting people because their resumes were pretty much announced like they were on a dating show. Here's Michelle Robinson who matriculated from Princeton before getting her Junior Doctorates from Harvard Law. Her brother is a basketball coach at Brown and her dad has MS. Young Barack is a young summer associate who is going to Harvard Law and was born in Hawaii. He briefly worked as a Gardens community organizer while going to Columbia and for a young man he's surprisingly well traveled. He likes pie and hates ice cream.
Bingo! |
Now apparently a lot of the events of the film are true to life. Barack Obama was a summer associate at the law firm Michelle was working at and Michelle did initially refuse to go on a date with him. They did in-fact see Do the Right Thing (1989) and did in-fact go get Baskin Robbins afterward. Yet if these two characters were purely fictional, chances are you'd be bored out of your mind watching this movie. If ever there was an example of a true story that isn't interesting enough to be a movie, this is clearly it; especially given the "will they or won't they" tension that actually makes movies like these bearable is absent.
Southside with You is an innocent, easily digestible and easily forgettable puff piece on the level of a Teen Beat article asking Sasha who her favorite One Direction member is. That in itself is not the worst thing in the world, but given that the real life Obama is still a lightning rod of controversy, this film is quite the letdown by comparison.
Final Grade: D
No comments:
Post a Comment