Today marks the release of Netflix's Barry, a movie that explores Barack Obama's formative years in college in New York City.
In anticipation of the film a new trailer has dropped, which finds Barack talking about what he has experienced so far in the big city with his mother, which leads to some poignant confessions.
"How are you, Barry? How are you really," his mother asks as they walk together. "Honestly, I don't know. Sometimes I feel like I want to breathe in everything New York has to offer," Obama responds. "Other times it all seems like one big distraction. People seem like distractions. I feel like I could just stop talking and, I don't know, just disappear."
The young Obama (portrayed by Devon Terrell) then goes on to discuss the burden of representation he feels having to speak for all black people in his classes, as well as leaving Black Student Union meets because he feels like he does not belong.
Barry is described as a "crowd pleaser," that finds Obama “faced with questions about race, culture, and identity in what proves to be a crucial year in [his] life," as he attends Columbia University. Here is the official synopsis for the movie:
"It's the Fall of 1981 and a young Barack Obama —known to his friends as "Barry" — arrives as a transfer student at Columbia University. Thrust into Mayor Koch's racially fraught and crime-ridden New York City, Barry finds himself pulled between various social stratospheres. As he struggles to maintain a series of increasingly strained relationships— with his Kansas-born mother, his estranged Kenyan father, and his classmates — glaring issues of inequality force him to confront questions surrounding his own identity. His experiences over that pivotal school year begin to shape his views on race, government, and what it means to be an American."
Judging by this recently released teaser, as well as another one that came before, the movie really is intent on showing how what Obama experienced in college shaped him to become the man he is today.
Check out the clip below, and put Barry in your queue for this coming weekend.
