A Tale of Two Obamas
In 2016, there were two attempts to dramatize Barack Obama's pre-Presidential days on-screen. Years after Obama left the White House, how do these two vastly different biopics hold up?
There have been a number of Presidential biopics over the years, with a drastic range of quality, whether it be to the screenplays to the production value, to the performances. But with that, there’s been something of a formula, or at least, an expectation over who one of these movies will go. They’ll be prestigious, typically award contenders with star-studded casts, a lot of period decor, and a mammoth length run time. Whenever it comes to any biopic, I tend to prefer ones that focus on a specific period over the subject’s life, because the idea of condensing down a significant person’s life into a typical movie runtime is just never going to give you a very complete picture that lets you appreciate the subject.
Focusing on a significant event or period of time in a person’s life can actually lend a lot of insight through the details. That’s one reason why I loved Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, because it focused specifically on his quest to ratify the 13th amendment. That spoke much more to the thesis of the filmmakers on Lincoln’s presidency, rather than just a generic, epic movie about his entire life story.
And there are two other examples that I’ve always been fascinated with, and I’m frankly quite surprised there’s not more conversation surrounding them. In the last year of Barack Obama’s presidency, there were two separate biopics made about him. And in taking a different approach to the typical presidential biopic, such as Oliver Stone’s George W. Bush biopic, they both depicted a pre-political section of his life. The theatrically released Southside with You dramatizes Barack’s first date with his now-wife, Michelle Obama, while the Netflix original Barry (not to be confused with the hit HBO show) revolves around him going to Columbia during the early ‘80s.
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