Southside With You is a 2016 romantic dramedy written and directed by Richard Tanne and starring Tika Sumpter and Parker Sawyers. The film was produced by John Legend.
In the late summer of 1989, Michelle Robinson (Sumpter), an ambitious attorney has been invited by her colleague, Barack Obama (Sawyers) to attend a local community meeting. Barack is clearly looking for a date, but Michelle insists she's not interested and simply wants to attend the event as colleagues. Over the course of the day, they get to know each other more, visiting a museum, having some lunch, and watching the new Spike Lee film Do the Right Thing. As the day goes on, Michelle begins to let her guard down and the two become closer.
The movie premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival before getting a theatrical release on August 26, 2016. The trailer can be seen here
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Tropes Present in Southside With You include
- The '80s
- Alternate Character Interpretation: In-Universe, Barack and Michelle Obama find themselves in conversation with a higher-up at their law firm after they all saw the same screening of Do the Right Thing, and Barack is asked why Mookie threw the trash can into Sal's restaurant. Barack tells his boss that he did so to redirect the mob's anger, protecting him from the riot and ensuring he'd be compensated by insurance. Later, he tells Michelle that no, Mookie did it because he was angry.
- Based on a True Story: While the specific conversations were invented, the film is a broadly accurate depiction of how the Obama's first date went, as previously detailed in various interviews and books.
- Call-Forward: Barack's speech at the community meeting invokes many of the mannerisms and themes that would later make him a successful politician.
- The Charmer: Barack presents himself this way, and it's one of the reasons why Michelle is initially resistant about going on a date with him.
- Disappeared Dad: Barack still harbors a great deal of resentments towards the father he never really knew.
- Extremely Short Timespan: The movie takes place over the course of one day.
- First Kiss: Outside a Baskin Robbins, a location now memorialized with a plaque.
- Foregone Conclusion: Will They or Won't They? They will.
- Office Romance: Michelle wants to avoid this, so she can be better taken seriously as a lawyer on her own merits.
- Seinfeldian Conversation: Barack and Michelle speak about such things as art, Good Times, and their choice of dessert over the course of their day together.
- She Is Not My Girlfriend: A variation: Michelle insists their time together is not a date... until it is.
- Speech-Centric Work: Very much in the vein of Before Sunrise.
- The Stoner: Barack jokes that his memories of high school are obfuscated by a "cloudy haze".
- Walk and Talk: The whole movie follows Barack and Michelle on their first date, with occasional stops on the way.
- Where da White Women At?: Michelle susses out that Barack has dated white women in the past, as evidenced by the dialogue from two people they meet at the community center, and quizzes him about it.
- Young Future Famous People: Barack Obama and Michelle Robinson as up-and-coming lawyers in Chicago of the late ‘80s.
