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[GK86]

Long before he sought presidency in Washington, D.C., he was a college kid in New York in search of himself.

Release Date: Comes out Dec. 16th.

Links:

• Netflix page
• Trailer

Reviews:

• AV Club:
  
  

  This isn’t the first tiny American drama of 2016 to tackle the salad days of our soon-to-be-former POTUS. Back in the summer, Southside With You dramatized Barack’s first date with Michelle, spinning the events of a single day in August 1989 into a speculative Chicago romance featuring two colleagues blissfully unaware that they’ll eventually be the first couple. Barry goes deeper into Obama’s biography, rewinding the clock to an August eight years earlier, when Barack transferred to Columbia University to study political science. It’s a different movie, set in a more cluttered metropolis and across a longer time frame, with a greater emphasis on Obama’s doubts and fears, as opposed to his mega-watt charm. But its strategy isn’t so different from Southside With You’s; both films imply that the man was shaped, emotionally and philosophically, by city life. And both play on a kind of preemptive nostalgia, drawing bittersweet interest from a nation-wide sentimentality about the imminent end of Obama’s time in the Oval.

• NY Times:
  
  

  It’s 1981 and Barry, as he likes to be called (a charming Devon Terrell, who has the loose walk and vocal rhythms down), is en route to Columbia University, a transfer student starting his junior year. Once he’s landed, the movie — written by Adam Mansbach and directed by Vikram Gandhi — follows Barry, as he shifts between Columbia, where he studies political science, and his life off campus, where he plays street ball and at times unwinds in a cloud of pot smoke. It’s a somewhat familiar if rather elevated sentimental education, with in-class discussions about the ancient Greeks and democracy, and an outside world that seems largely defined by its stark black-and-white truths.

• Variety:
  
  

  The Barack Obama we meet in “Barry,” on the other hand (a movie set eight years earlier), is a very different sort of cat, a young man you feel you scarcely know at all, because he doesn’t totally know himself — which turns out to be the theme of the movie. As played by the canny Australian actor Devon Terrell, he’s not even Barack yet, he’s just Barry, rolling with the punches, a slightly gawky handsome angular dude with a fringe of Afro and a way of falling into pensive trances when he’s chain-smoking. Terrell nails the clipped vibe of awareness, and a youthful version of the stare, to an uncanny degree. His Barry is reasonably self-possessed, with a lot of ideas, but he doesn’t have a clue as to how they fit together. He’s not the talkative lawyer-professor we’re used to. He’s tentative, his brashness weighed down by hidden doubts.

• LA Times:
  
  

  This Obama is very much an earnest guy and more than a little square, someone definitely not as worldly as his biography as a young man — who was raised in Indonesia and Hawaii as the son of a Kenyan intellectual and a Kansas mother — would have you believe.
  
  In some ways, "Barry" the film takes its personality from Barry himself. Always pleasant and companionable but a little pro forma in its early going, it gains in texture and interest as Obama's life and his reaction to it get more complex.

Cast:

Devon Terrell as Barack Obama, Anya Taylor-Joy as Charlotte, Jason Mitchell as PJ

Ashley Judd as Ann Dunham, Jenna Elfman as Kathy Baughman, Ellar Coltrane as Will

Promo photos:

 

[GK86]

Available now.

 

[BlazinSkatinAxel]

It's good so far.

 

[Robdraggoo]

I read promo photos as prompto photos

 

[J_Viper]

Does it show how Obama claimed the Chaos Emeralds?

 

[Slime]

Anyone have any thoughts? Thinking about watching it this weekend.

 

[fantomena]

Im confused. Didn't know the movie was potraying Obamas early life. Why call it "Barry"? Was it a irl nickname he had when he was young?

 

[Samimista]

Anyone have any thoughts? Thinking about watching it this weekend.

I enjoyed it, but I hope there'll be sequel or something. I felt like it was kinda short (even though, it's almost two hours long).

 

[FireBeaver]

I want to see Obama's reaction to this.

 

[Imm0rt4l]

Im confused. Didn't know the movie was potraying Obamas early life. Why call it "Barry"? Was it a irl nickname he had when he was young?

Yeah

 

[Bronx-Man]

Why does Young Obama look one of those generic CW models

 

[WrenchNinja]

Okay I really enjoyed this.

The movie shows Obama as a regular guy trying to figure out where he fits in the world and what better place is there to find yourself than in New York City. He's caught between two worlds because of his mixed race heritage, and feeling out of place in both. It doesnt help that he grew up in a bunch of places and doesnt feel comfortable saying where he's from. And he's dealing with trying to communicate with his father who he hasn't spoken to since he was a child.

Some heavy stuff and not what I expected coming into this. This isn't the personable leader Obama we know now but the stoic and introspective youth he was at the time.

 

[GK86]

I thought this was a good coming-of-age movie. What I liked is that he is struggling to find his place in the world. Find out what "scene" he belongs to. He is just an ordinary guy.

His friend, Salem, was fantastic. Dude was hilarious when he was mimicking Barry. And I wished there were more scenes with Barry's mother. There scenes together were great. I could watch a movie just about them two.

My main complaint is the ending. Just feels like they didn't know how to end it. Just comes abruptly.

 

[Brinbe]

Excited to watch this. But I admit this just makes me want to re-read Dreams from my Father which touched on all this.

 

[DontBeThatGuy]

I would recommend the other Obama movie that was released this year as well. (Southside With You)

 

[Fafnir]

Just finished this. I liked it as it resonated on how I identify with myself. Hope there's a sequel.

Michelle be watching this and be like, "Who's this Charlotte, "Barry"?".

 

[obin_gam]

Whos gonna play Malik? That's the important Academy Award Supporting Role

 

[Bladenic]

Dunno why but I'm laughing at Ashley Judd and Jenna Elfman being in this and their pics used in the OP lmao

 

[Izuna]

I actually really hated this.