Southside with You

Southside with You (2016) is a romantic drama you can watch online on iFILM. Director Richard Tanne built his debut feature around a single Chicago day in the summer of 1989 — the first date between a young Barack Obama and Michelle Robinson, long before the White House entered the picture.

Parker Sawyers plays Barack: charming, a little too clever for his own good, insisting this isn't a date when clearly it is. Tika Sumpter is Michelle — sharp, measured, not easily sold. Over the course of 83 minutes they visit the Art Institute of Chicago, catch Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, and argue about ambition, community organizing and what it actually means to want change.

What makes the film stick is its refusal to treat these two as monuments. They are just people figuring each other out. Stream Southside with You (2016) online on iFILM.