WASHINGTON — “1989! The number! Another summer!”
Despite that proclamation by Public Enemy to open Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” (1989), this was no ordinary “dinner and a movie.” It was part of a marathon first date by Barack Obama and Michelle Robinson on the south side of Chicago, chronicled in writer/director Richard Tanne’s new romance “Southside With You,” nominated for the top prize at Sundance and arriving in D.C. theaters Friday.
While “When Harry Met Sally” fans might call it “When Barack Met Michelle,” the better comparison is “Before Sunrise” (1995), as the future president and first lady walk and talk around town. Michelle insists it isn’t a date, Barack gradually wears her down, and both evolve over an epic date from an art museum to a community meeting, from a vital movie date to a first kiss over chocolate ice cream.
“At the end of the day, it’s just about a girl and a boy getting to know each other, figuring it out and figuring themselves out at the same time, coming to a conclusion to maybe be together,” actress Tika Sumpter told WTOP. “We know what happens, but there’s a suspense in it. It’s just a good story.”
The low-budget indie romance caught Sumpter’s attention right away as something she’d not only like to star in, but something she’d also love to produce, alongside executive producer John Legend.
“After I read the synopsis, I thought, ‘Whoever wrote this is brilliant,’” Sumpter said. “I had lunch with [Tanne]. He explained his vision to me. He’s like, ‘But it’s not written,’ and I’m like, ‘Write it!’ I was calling him every two weeks asking him, ‘Did you write it?’ Finally he wrote it and I was blown away.”
Immediately, Sumpter and co-star Parker Sawyers had to master their famous parts.
“Now, it’s not so much an imitation, it’s part of who I am,” Sawyers told WTOP in his best President Obama impression. “It’s the pauses, it’s a sing-songy sort of way, and the uhh … pause when he’s thinking, it goes to the back of the throat. And how he cuts off words at the end of the sentence.”
To prepare, Sawyers went to the videotape.
“I prepared by watching videos of him online of when he was 29 to 33 years old, just so I could get some sort of sense of how he was back then,” Sawyers said. “Then I re-read ‘Dreams From My Father’ and ‘Audacity of Hope’ just to really get inside his childhood and the way he thinks and his thought process. Then I dropped all of that and just played to Tika, to Michelle, on the screen.”
Sumpter had a similar method of mirroring Michelle.
“I also watched video of her now speaking to graduate students,” she said. “She’s just so lively and chill and accessible in herself. Then I also picked up some of the way she moves her hand to her chest and definitely had a voice coach for the way she talks. … So yeah, it was a lot of preparation for this.”
However, Sumpter had a bit more leeway than Sawyers in her portrayal.
“There’s no video of her at that age, so I got to create her,” she said. “Her brother’s book ‘Game of Character’ really informed me about who she is … character-wise, family-wise and all that.”
Over the course of the research, what did she learn?
“Her family is a huge influence on who she is today,” Sumpter said. “Her dad didn’t get to finish school because of financial reasons, but he worked really hard to make sure they got through. Nowadays, we don’t talk about things in the household. We’re all on our phones. But they really spoke about life and things that were going on. Her dad was involved in the politics in Chicago. So they were given the biggest gift ever: self-esteem and confidence and realizing that their voice matters.”
As for Sawyers, his research reminded him of the importance of well-rounded life experience.
“I was reminded of how active he is and was, just the amount of things he did from childhood, moving around to Indonesia to Hawaii to Occidental College, then to New York, then to Chicago,” he said. “That’s something he and Michelle share with her upbringing: they were active, doing piano lessons and French lessons. … I can’t picture either one of them laying on the couch doing nothing.”
This concept comes through from the outset of the movie.
“The first time you see him, he’s reading a book,” Sawyers said. “He’s always active intellectually.”
You can also see this quest for knowledge come out in their conversations, particularly in the art museum as young Barack blends highbrow description of Ernie Barnes’ artwork, while maintaining lowbrow cred by relating it to TV’s “Good Times” and quoting the signature sitcom line, “Dyno-mite!”
At times, the dialogue is a bit too perfect as we detect the exposition. But while it’s admittedly romanticized, isn’t that what we want from a movie romance? After a summer of superhero flicks packed with action-driven explosions, it’s refreshing to see two characters just walking and talking.
Hats off to Tanne for having the courage of his convictions to stick to this “day in the life” concept without the crutch of flashbacks to their childhoods or flashforwards to the White House. Tight framing brings us into their intimate moments, while distant shots and silhouettes strip away the facial features of Sumpter and Sawyers, leaving nearly identical recreations of Barack and Michelle.
All the while, Tanne offers clever symbolic touches. As they exit the “Do the Right Thing” screening, Michelle nervously lies to her law-firm colleague about them being on a date. Fittingly, Tanne shows a poster of Steven Soderbergh’s “sex lies and videotape” (1989) behind her, only the word “sex” is cropped out of the frame, leaving only “lies and videotape.” Brilliant! I see you Richard Tanne!
“Rich is the consummate professional and a terrific writer,” Sawyers said. “He knew the script and everything he wanted to do and what he wanted to accomplish, backwards and forwards. When somebody is so prepared and so on-the-ball, you can’t help but rise to their level. Not just the cast, but the crew, everybody wanted to bring this vision to life. I’d definitely work with him again.”
It’s only fitting that one of the most resonate scenes would come outside “Do the Right Thing.” It’s almost fate that President Obama would be inaugurated in 2009, exactly 20 years after Spike Lee’s masterpiece on racial tensions in 1989. As young Barack tells Michelle it was a coincidence that they ran into their law-firm colleague at the movie, Michelle replies, “That wasn’t a coincidence. It was cosmic justice.” You could say the same about their first date movie being “Do the Right Thing.”
“There’s a lot in that movie,” Sumpter said. “They were both up against a lot. [Michelle] surrounded by men, [Barack] surrounded by mostly white men. Being a black woman coming from Harvard and Yale and being one of the only ones, she even says that she feels like she’s coming from Planet Black and landing on Planet White. There’s a lot of separation and they wanted to bring things together. They wanted to make a difference. I think that movie probably affected the way they see things.”
Regardless of your politics — surely there’s vast disagreement between Republicans and Democrats over the policies of the last eight years — everyone can appreciate this intimate look at two young lovers on the brink of history who would go on to become loving parents of two lovely daughters.
“I don’t think you have to be a Democrat or Republican,” Sumpter said. “At the heart of it, it’s all about love. … Even if you take them out, we’ve had people say, ‘This reminds me of my wife and I,’ or ‘This reminds me of my boyfriend and I.’ That’s the great thing about the storytelling that Rich wrote such a great script that they can associate themselves and take these two out of it if they needed to.”
It may be about love at its core, but it’s also more importantly about the virtues of withholding judgment and giving others the benefit of the doubt. As young Barack inspires a church filled with black community organizers to give the white city council the benefit of the doubt, he channels the best of Atticus Finch: “We never truly know what it’s like to walk in their shoes, but we have to try. For where their needs align with our needs, that’s where things get done. That’s America.”
In moments like this, the actors channel the better angels of their real-life counterparts. To the actors’ knowledge, the first family hasn’t seen the movie yet, nor have they met with the rising young actors who portray them on screen. But what would these stars tell them if given the chance?
“I would thank them for their service, for sharing their lives with us and inspiring future generations,” Sawyers said. “That’s also how I view the film coming out in this heated political climate. It’s a reminder to both parties, any party, that at the base of it, it’s the classic American narrative. … Two people fall in love, realize they’re both ambitious, and think, ‘We could build something together.’ So for that, I would thank them for illustrating that on the world stage, for now and for history.”
Exiting the interview, looking at Sumpter’s pregnant state, it dawned on me that her child will be born into a world where America always knew a black president. And just like that, after a relentless campaign year of red-tinted playground insults on one side and blue-tinted FBI investigations on the other, the purple words of U2’s “City of Blinding Lights” — which gave so many Americans hope in 2008 — suddenly doubled for an indie romance under the lights of Chicago:
“Can you see the beauty inside of me? And I miss you when you’re not around, I’m getting ready to leave the ground. Oh, you look so beautiful tonight. In the city of blinding lights.”
Listen to the full interview with Tika Sumpter and Parker Sawyers below:
