‘Southside With You’ Trailer: Barack and Michelle Obama’s First Date Isn’t Really a Date
We’re sadly approaching the end of Barack Obama’s presidency, and following last night’s White House Correspondence Dinner, the first trailer for Southside With You has arrived in timely fashion. The sweet indie romance flick takes us back in time to 1989, when a young Barack met his future wife, Michelle, and took her on their very first date — well, according to her, it wasn’t actually a date (but it kind of was).
The comparisons to Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy are inevitable, as Southside With You similarly takes place over the course of one day in 1989, when Barack Obama had just started his job at a law firm. His new colleague Michelle (then Robinson) reticently accepts an offer to spend the afternoon together, and we watch as the pair converse and get to know one another in what eventually came to be known as the Obamas’ first date — despite her insistence to the contrary.
Patrick Sawyers plays Obama opposite Tika Sumpter’s Michelle, and perhaps the most impressive aspect of the trailer is how neither of these actors are doing impressions of their real-life counterparts. Sawyers in particular has a natural, effortless quality in his role as the future president, forgoing the typical mimicry approach which could have been very distracting.
Here’s the official synopsis for the film:
Inspired by Barack and Michelle Obama’s first date, SOUTHSIDE WITH YOU recounts the eventful summer day in 1989 when a young law firm associate named Barack Obama (Parker Sawyers) tried to woo lawyer Michelle Robinson (Tika Sumpter) during a daylong date that took them from the Art Institute of Chicago to a screening of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing to the site of their first kiss outside of an ice cream parlor.
Southside With You hits theaters on August 26.