The first date between Barack and Michelle Obama is brought to the screen in Southside With You, a Before Sunrise-style indie that has already received positive reviews at Sundance.
The trailer has now arrived, giving us our first real look at the romantic drama. Little-known actors Parker Sawyers and Tika Sumpter take on the leads as the politically aware and ambitious twentysomethings who spend a day exploring the Chicago’s South Side together.
It is written and directed by first-time film-maker Richard Tanne and produced by John Legend. The film was well received when it premiered earlier this year at the Sundance film festival, with Variety’s Justin Chang calling it “disarmingly romantic” and the Hollywood Reporter’s Todd McCarthy recommending it as “warm and surprisingly engaging”.
While the Obamas themselves haven’t made an official comment on the film, Tanne claimed at a Q&A that they were supportive. “We’ve heard from some pretty reliable sources that they are aware [of the film],” he said. “They are excited. And they are also a little baffled by its existence.”
Tanne’s knowledge of the intricacies of the date itself has been informed by “public-domain articles, interviews, videos” and he claims the trajectory of the date is 90% accurate.
“They went to the art institute,” he said. “They had lunch afterwards. They saw Do the Right Thing. They had ice cream. They kissed outside the ice cream parlour ... there was some question as to whether or not the community organising meeting happened on the first date, or if it just happened early in the courtship, but dramatically it worked, so I just put it in. Again, it’s a fictionalised account, so I tried to be as authentic as possible.”
Southside With You is released in US cinemas on 19 August with a UK date yet to be confirmed.
