Barack Obama hasn’t even left office yet, and he’s already had more movies made about him than some presidents have in a lifetime (sorry John Tyler). First there was the rom-com Southside With You, where he was played by newcomer Parker Sawyers. Now fellow newcomer Devon Terrell is set to take on the role in the upcoming Netflix film Barry. We got a brief glimpse of Terrell in the film’s teaser trailer, but this full trailer offers a more extended look at Terrell’s take on Obama.
And it’s pretty good! Terrell is perhaps doing less of a direct impression than Sawyers, but he’s still clearly channeling the energy of the future 44th President of the United States. The film centers on Obama’s time at Columbia, where he transferred during his junior year in 1981. He was going by Barry at the time and the trailer focuses on how hard it was for Barry to find his place in the world as the son of a white mother from Kansas and a black father from Kenya. In between the discussions of identity, there are also brief glimpses of romance, breakdancing, and police harassment.
The A.V. Club spoke to Barry director Vikram Gandhi back in September, around the film’s premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. It’s slightly bittersweet to look back at that interview now, where Gandhi noted, “There’s a feeling of, this is a decent human, like a good person being before being a great person. I think that is something we are all going to miss. I just never imagined that we would miss him so much because I never imagined a man named Trump would ever be possibly elected.” Barry debuts on Netflix on December 16.