Barry

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.

This movie is not entirely what I was expecting; I expected a chronicle of the young life of Obama and his years at Columbia and Harvard. Instead, I saw a powerful story of race and a young man trying to find himself in a big city where he doesn't seem to fit in anywhere. The movie largely focuses on this concept of Obama not fitting in and seeming alone in the world; there are probably right around five minutes total of simply scenes of Barry smoking cigarettes by himself, pondering life. This is a tale of angst and identity. It shows a much more human side to our president that we don't get to see very often. At the very least, it will give you a more human understanding of the president and maybe you will be able to see the drive and optimism that he still has for our country. He is critical of the system and believes the people must make change happen, two ideas still similar to his beliefs, though due to the way Washington works, was simply unable to fully follow through on.

Overall, although it is a little slow at parts, it sends a powerful message about race and what it's like to not feel like you fit in anywhere.

This film had important themes about being biracial in America, now or in the 1980's, but having Barack "Barry" Obama was detrimental (for me, at least).

The director said in an interview that the idea was to "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," yet the latter part of that idea is non-existent in the film. It's just an accurate story about a mixed-race kid in New York in 1981 and that'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.

I found this confounding, because "Barry" 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 there's nothing in the film to suggest that it did, which is even more confounding.

Had 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.

If you're interested in seeing the film purely for that theme, you'll probably enjoy it.

If you're looking to learn about Barack Obama's college years, you'll be disappointed.

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.

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."