Barry review: a bittersweet vision of young Barack Obama

Quiet, watchful, usually lost in a book or deep in thought, a young man arrives to New York in 1981 not to find himself but in the hopes of getting lost. He goes by the name of Barry, but you know him by another, namely the 44th President of the United States.

As a high-achieving Columbia University student roaming a graffiti-daubed city, he picks up yet another name, partly for his stealth on the basketball court, but mainly for the book he is reading: The Invisible Man.

In these last days of Obama's presidency, you can understand burgeoning nostalgia for the man. With what lies ahead, moreover, director Vikram Gandhi's modest biopic, Barry (Netflix), a year in his life, provides a kind of comfort watching. Played with a familiar thoughtful squint and hesitant voice by newcomer Devon Terrell, this image of Obama relies on an impression that becomes grating, but the impression it takes of Obama – as a unifying figure who begins with himself – now seems extremely bittersweet.

“You can fit in anywhere,” enthuses one friend, and indeed Barry gets an all-access pass to the city, shooting hoops on the court, reassuring the panjandrums of the dining clubs, getting down at a disco or a house party in the Projects. Yet his diffident refrain is “This ain’t my scene”. How about politics? “Politics is bullshit,” he tells his girlfriend Charlotte (Anya Taylor-Joy).

You may wonder, then, at what this model of temperamental restraint will reveal, as his mother (Ashley Judd) does: “How are you really, Barry?” But even before public life, the filmmakers decide, Barry was unlikely to admit. For that reason, you can project anything on this extraordinary figure: hope, change, disappointment, concern, respect.

How his legacy stands up in the frightening years to come may require a very different kind of film, but even as you watch this elegant story of a young man learning to become visible, you’re more moved by the sobering thought of seeing him go.