#REVIEW SOUTHSIDE WITH YOU HOW TO#
#REVIEW SOUTHSIDE WITH YOU MOVIE#

We know Michelle’s a little less – she doesn’t enjoy the spotlight (but damn does she shine when she’s in it). We know Barack’s speech cadences – especially when he’s speechifying, but also when he’s just talking.

#REVIEW SOUTHSIDE WITH YOU MOVIE#

This whole movie rides on the actor’s performances of two people who we know REALLY well. And we get Michelle explaining how her position as one of the few black women in the law firm makes her career and position more of a balancing act than it is for everyone else.

#REVIEW SOUTHSIDE WITH YOU HOW TO#

We get a master class in how Barack, community organizer, got shit done (and how to work the system to get what you want out of it). They debate, and challenge each other in a way that only soulmates or destined archenemies can do. While they do all of this, they discuss their families, and how their upbringing made them the young adults they are, including Michelle’s father’s determination to give his children the education he couldn’t afford, and Barack’s complicated feelings about his father. Then they go to the meeting, catch a showing of Do The Right Thing, and get ice cream.

But he picks her up hours before the meeting, thinking maybe they could go see an exhibit of Afrocentric art and get food beforehand. It starts off with a lie – Michelle has turned Barack down a few times (not matter how cute he is: “You think I’m cute?”) and he gets her to agree to go to a community meeting with him. The joy is in the journey, and seeing two people figure out that this is the person they hate less than all the others. But we romance readers know what it’s like when the ending is a given. There’s very little tension here – we know how this story goes (spoiler: they are still disgustingly in love with each other, and a prime example of “I love you and I like you”). This is a fictionalized version of that day, written and direction by Richard Tanne.

But in 1989 they were just Michelle and Barack, and they were still trying to figure out who they were and how they fit into the world. But these two people – a lawyer and a summer associate (read: law student working as grunt labor for a summer) would grow up to be the President and First Lady of the United States. I mean, a lot of people did that summer, I’m sure. One day in the summer of 1989, two people went on a first date.

Review southside with you