![]() The complicated portraits of presidents painted by Oliver Stone in Nixon (1995) and W. Such hagiography of our chief executives is not unheard of, but it’s also less common than you might think. Obama hasn’t even left office, but the cinematic hagiography has begun." As the New York Times’ Manohla Dargis-no indignant reactionary offended by this mediocre offering’s praise to the heavens, she- put it, "Mr. He’s more interested in resurrecting the idea of hope and change, as embodied by the young couple in love, than he is in examining why the former has been lost and the latter has failed. There’s an interesting film to be made about Obama’s relation to his father, but director Richard Tanne doesn’t make much use of this fertile territory. Oddly, the movie often works better when Michelle and Barack are not on screen together, as in the early going when the two of them discuss the evening’s events with their respective families. It’s a lot of shot/reverse shot and slow walk-and-talks, with Barack and Michelle’s faces all-too-often draped in shadows. The rest of the film is less annoyingly, but rarely more artfully, put together. ![]() Like Galt’s rambling ode to the Makers-Not-Takers Class, Obama’s vision of a world that works best when compromise is prized bears little relation to the world we’ve seen for the last few years. "You definitely have a knack for making speeches," she says, a cringe-inducing summation of Obama’s political talents. ![]() When we cut away, it’s often to Michelle (Tika Sumpter), who is seen smiling in the audience, overcome by the great man’s words, Dagny Taggart gazing at the man who would jumpstart the motor of the world. Though mercifully shorter than John Galt’s stem-winder near the end of Atlas Shrugged, Obama’s speech is also staged poorly: The camera lingers on our hero, static, shot slightly from below to give him a majestic visage. ![]() Barack Obama (Parker Sawyers) strides to the pulpit of a rundown inner-city church and launches into a clunky but heartfelt riff on the nature of American society-that we can only make progress when we come together and work for the greater good. ![]()
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