Barry

In my latest review on HereLiesZay.com, I write:

"We're not fortunate enough to be flies on the walls of all the people in life we are enamored by. We don't get to see all the little moments in time that contribute to the most current versions of the human beings we adore and admire. And the beauty of it all, ironically, is that having access to the sum of all these moments (the person themselves) is how we're able to appreciate each moment individually. It's their context in relation to every other moment that enables us to enjoy the basket of personality that is weaved in and out of each varying nugget of experience.

Unfortunately, Barry simply did not succeed in providing us that context."

The movie is an interesting look at the President's early life. We've come to expect the current President to be cool and collected and this movie looks at the anxieties and insecurities that he would have faced at that time.

I would recommend this movie to a person interested in human behaviour. The film is, at its heart, the study of a young mixed-raced man trying to find his place in early 1980s New York but it also interesting as Obama's personal story, particularly his slightly disapproving view of his mother and his conflicted feelings about his absent father.

The lead actor Terrell does a great and convincing job as the young Obama. However, the film lacks something special and leaves you with the lingering feeling that there's another installment to be watched.

I wonder who felt compelled to change the the facts: 1- Ann Dunham was 18 when she had Barak. Why have her say she was 19? 2- Obama Sr got a masters at Harvard. Why have Barry say it was a PhD?

3- no comment how he got from Occidental to Columbia?

4- in the eighties I was pulled over in my own town because my car was covered in salt from driving on the highway in the winter. As I'm not black I couldn't claim racism was his reason for pulling me over. But I did appreciate the police looking into any suspicious vehicles.

Nothing in this movie explains 20 years with Jeremiah Wright, how Barack met Michelle, or any of the other missing pieces of information from Barak's past.

Barry simply put is the early years of Barack Obama in New York and his struggles trying to fit himself among the people there. Simply put, it his the identity crises caused because of his mixed ethnicity.

Its a beautiful story on paper but in the hands of director Vikram Gandhi, this is a story lost in translation.

The movie starts of well as the young Barack moves into New York with a serious identity crisis. It is shown that he never as such connected with his Dad in Kenya, his years in Manila have changed him and he questions the things around him. He cannot mix with either the blacks or the whites. He has a nice sweet white girlfriend but due to the crisis inside him, he starts to move away from here. And he has loving mother beautifully played by Ashley Judd who tells him that all will be fine one day.

However, the writing is inconsistent and we are never ever able to understand or feel the chaos inside Obama. At some places the story is drifting and I was wondering what is happening. However, the ending saves the film from being a total washout.

Devon Terrell is a good actor and its too early for me to judge him through this film since the writing and directing are not upto the mark. He does put up a nice performance and I hope to see more of him soon.

The rest of the cast puts a commendable performance and the movie is worth a visit on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

To counter the only other "review" which is, in fact, a political complaint about the Obama administration and implies that the author had not actually watched the film at all, I am writing this.

This is an interesting look at the life of "Barry", who isn't a politician and has no interest in politics at all. It looks at conflict, race, trying to fit into two worlds and not feeling like you belong in either... It's about learning who you are in a world that isn't sure where it thinks you belong. It was a wonderfully interesting peek into a time that helped to shape the man who would go on to be the leader of the free world.

A very good watch if you can manage to set your political affiliations aside for long enough to actually watch it.