Vikram Gandhi‘s Barry, which I saw and praised during the Toronto Film Festival, began streaming on Netflix on 12.16. Not just a smart, finely tooled character study but one of the year’s best indies — trust me.
On 9.16.16 I called it “a modest but sharply etched character study of young Barry Obama between ’81 and ’83, when he began and completed his junior and senior years at NYC’s Columbia University as a political science major, and more particularly when he began to grapple with his half-white, half-black identity.
“Yes — another young Obama flick on top of Richard Tanne‘s commendable and charming Southside With You. Barry is obviously smallish but quite fluid and specific — carefully made, nicely layered, more observing of small details and generally a looser, craftier film than Southside, which (don’t get me wrong) I felt respect and affection for on its own terms.
“Barry, in short, is basically a ‘who am I?’ flick about social conflict, racism (both the benevolent and hostile kinds), hesitancy and uncertainty start to finish — a whole lotta frowning and meditating on Barry’s part.
“It basically studies this athletic, mild-mannered young dude and gives him the time and the room to find his own way as he becomes friendly with a variety of black, brown and white characters on the Columbia campus and near his off-campus apartment on West 116th Street.