The end of a presidency is always a cause for contemplation and rumination, this time more than ever. As we approach the final days of President Obama’s 8-year term in office, it’s only natural that we reflect on the man, who he is, what he accomplished, and how he got there. While the specter of his successor looms heavily on the minds of at least 50% of this country, we turn towards the man who inherited an impossible task and weathered the blows of a gale force opposition in order to lead us towards a calmer sea.
With that in mind, Barry, now streaming on Netflix, is as timely a movie as has ever been released. That’s about all it is, however. I can only imagine that everyone involved in its production had the best of intentions in making their movie, but we all know exactly what the road to Hell is paved with.
In this case, the Hell is cinematic, and no amount of well-intentioned hero building can make up for the dreadful lack of subtly or nuance as Barry aimlessly plods through its entirely pointless narrative. There’s neither a director nor cast on this planet who could spin gold from this straw man of script, though I will go so far as to concede that best efforts were indeed made.
Barry follows a young Barack (Devon Terrell) as he begins his studies at Columbia University in New York City. There, he attempts to rectify his personal identity with the perceptions of others—the white establishment who sees him as a black man, and a black population who views him as an outsider. Along the way, seeds are planted that will eventually grow into the president we would elect in 2008.
Admirable, to be sure, and filled with attempts at commentary on race relations and identity that should be all too relevant in today’s environment. The problem is that it all feels as though it was written by someone who never bothered to give these issues any real thought; instead, the script aimlessly goes through the motions, saying all the right things in all the wrong ways. Points are pounded home with the subtlety of a jackhammer, leaving precious little room for anything resembling poignance.
Screenwriter Adam Mansbach is best known for his tongue-in-cheek children’s book for adults, Go the Fuck to Sleep, whose unsubtle reflections charmed the internet several years ago, inspiring many of our most beloved actors to give readings from the book—Samuel L. Jackson most famously—much to our collective delight. None of said delight transfers to Barry, however, as Mansbach composes a story that desperately seeks purpose.
Worse still, it exists atop a peak of clichés and tropes so tired that your yawns of boredom feel something like sympathy. Young Barack reads Invisible Man while listening to Jesse Jackson—in case you needed a hint that this was a film about race—his mother raises her fist and yells, “Right on, brother” at the group singing “This Land is Your Land” in the park—if you weren’t sure that social justice was a theme—and Obama says things like, “The president’s an actor”—GET IT? SEE, HE BECOMES PRESIDENT LATER SO…
To their credit, director Vikram Gandhi brings a cinematic artistry a script such as this does not deserve, while Terrell’s performance is near uncanny as a young Obama. Barry is almost worth watching for these two elements alone, but not quite. Not even Anya Taylor-Joy, as Obama’s white girlfriend Christine—a stand in for all of us who just don’t get what the big deal is—can help spin this into something worth watching. Neither can Jason Mitchell, a stand out as Eazy-E in last year’s Straight Outta Compton, who here represents Barack’s, and in turn our own, introduction to the realities of marginalized living in 1980s America.
Like so much of Barry, their presence feels wasted. Words that should be infused with power come out as the trite observations of a college freshman newly aware of the concept of social justice, thanks to Mansbach’s ham fisted writing. While I could give points for the attempts made to address these issues, they feel so disingenuous that the net effect is a loss.
Perhaps it’s an issue of time. We’ve barely begun to process the good that President Obama did for our country, and not nearly enough time has passed to allow for the kind of nuance and insight allowed by history. As a result, Barry feels largely like telling us what we already knew, packaged in a clean veneer of fictionalization. Of course, all biopics suffer from this inclination to some degree or another, but here it feels especially grievous.
One day, it seems likely that we’ll get an Obama biopic worthy of his legacy. Today is not that day. The two hours you’d spend watching Barry would be better spent reading the many think pieces examining the man and his legacy that have been published, and will no doubt be published still in the coming weeks leading up to the next inauguration. This was a valiant attempt, no doubt, but the mark is well beyond missed.
Barry is now available for streaming on Netflix.
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