Southside With You

[projekktor id=’25133′]

Southside With You is a biographic drama written and directed by Richard Tanne. The film, which had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, stars Parker Sawyers and Tika Sumpter as Barack and Michelle Obama.

Inspired by Barack and Michelle Obama’s first date, Southside With You recounts the eventful summer day in 1989 when a charming young law associate named Barack Obama (Parker Sawyers) tries to woo reluctant attorney Michelle Robinson (Tika Sumpter) during a daylong date that takes them from an art exhibit to a screening of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing to a sweet first kiss outside of a Baskin-Robbins ice-cream parlor.

“There’s something special about the way the president and the first lady look at each other, and it’s something we’ve seen since the beginning of their rise to prominence,” Tanne says. “Their connection seems authentic and deep and vibrant. That’s a rare thing in life, and I think it’s an even rarer thing for public figures.”

Sawyers wasn’t intimidated by playing a future president. “I just relaxed into it — this is a person, this is not the president. This is a 28-year-old red-blooded man, who is extremely smart but really has a crush on this woman he is working with and allows himself to feel like a teenager, but one who speaks like a 28-year-old and carries himself like a 35- year-old. He’s got a lot of layers.”

Southside With You is rated PG.