Watch a Young Barack Obama Woo Michelle in Southside With You Trailer

First dates are simply the worst, a nightmare of polite small-talk about siblings and hometowns, held-in flatulence and desperate hopes that the person eating dinner across the table isnt a serial killer. Not so for Barack and Michelle Obama, or at least, not according to the Sundance breakout Southside With You,whichopens in theaters on August 26th.

Before the First Couple assumed their rightful place as the black JFK and Jackie O., they were two youngsters making tentative steps toward romance. But Richard Tannes account of the meet-cute between a big-eared law student from Harvard and the razor-sharp idealist mentoring him at his summer internship eschews the usual So, did you have any pets growing up? icebreakers. In a time before Tinder, two dreamers with big plans and the big ideas to back them up set history in motion with theirpassion.

Parker Sawyers plays Barry O. as a confident, quick-witted player who wont let office decorum get in the way of his crush, and as the former Michelle Robinson, Tika Sumpter combines the indomitable optimism that still characterizes Michelles policies and outreach projects with a soft-screwball spiritedness. She wont be wooed by this fast-talking charmer, except yes, of course she will. The stakes on this romance are practically non-existent (spoiler alert: they get together, the Titanic sinks, etc. etc.) but the total absence of tension gives way to a simpler, more soothing pleasure.

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Barack and Michelles dream date is like something out of a wholesome storybook, taking the couple from an outing to Chicagos Art Institute to a showing of Spike Lees incendiary classic,Do the Right Thing, to a picturesquelittle ice cream parlor, where the couple shared their first kiss. Irrespective of your political leanings, the couples intelligent rapport and playful courtship will warm the heart-chambers hardened by a constant barrage of bawdy gross-out romcoms. (Though Obamas liberal supporters will undoubtedly be tickled by the future POTUSearly triflings with civic duty.) Weve only got a few months left of the Obama administration, and theres no better way to commemorate the man, the woman and all they represent than bearing witness to the first seedlings of the greatest love story in modern politics.