Barry (2016)

Barry: Directed by Vikram Gandhi. With Devon Terrell, Anya Taylor-Joy, Jason Mitchell, Ellar Coltrane. A look into the early life of U.S. President Barack Obama.

“This film had important themes about being biracial in America, now or in the 1980u0026#39;s, but having Barack u0026quot;Barryu0026quot; Obama was detrimental (for me, at least).u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe director said in an interview that the idea was to u0026quot;accurately tell the story of a mixed-race kid in New York in 1981 that would one day become the 44th President of the United States,u0026quot; yet the latter part of that idea is non-existent in the film. Itu0026#39;s just an accurate story about a mixed-race kid in New York in 1981 and thatu0026#39;s it. I have no idea why Barack Obama is the main character of this film other than that he happens to be biracial. Any other detail specific to Barry is irrelevant to the story. You could have made this about a fictional biracial person named Darryl and it would have been exactly the same movie. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI found this confounding, because u0026quot;Barryu0026quot; IS the main character. And it was marketed as being about a young Barack Obama, which comes with certain expectations of seeing something that relates to the Obama we know – elements you would find in any other biopic – that are nowhere to be found. At best, you could make the argument that these experiences shaped the way he sees race in America, but thereu0026#39;s nothing in the film to suggest that it did, which is even more confounding. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eHad the main character been someone else, the theme of finding out where you belong would have made this a good film – competent acting, good dialogue and secondary characters. Everything was there, but setting the expectation of an Obama biopic and not delivering on that promise just left me disappointed. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIf youu0026#39;re interested in seeing the film purely for that theme, youu0026#39;ll probably enjoy it. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIf youu0026#39;re looking to learn about Barack Obamau0026#39;s college years, youu0026#39;ll be disappointed.”