Barry - Movie Reviews (2024)

Biased and showy hero worship is rightfully absent for a solid biography slice.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 14, 2019

Barry pays off in the end. It takes its time, but it gets there.

Full Review | Aug 3, 2018

There is nothing presidential in Devon Terrell's very entertaining portrayal of Barry (and he is only called Barry in this film -- Barack Obama is too grand and complicated a name for this easygoing fellow).

Full Review | Aug 3, 2018

With its emphasis on a sense of place and all the ways a young person can feel out of place, Barry isn't a biopic but, rather, a film about race, class, gender, and general tribalism in America.

Full Review | Oct 12, 2017

...thinking about Barry, the 1981-set film about a young Barack Obama as he arrived in New York City to attend Columbia University, I found myself thinking about a young Me in 1981, as I arrived in New York City to attend Columbia University...

Full Review | Original Score: 3.0 | Mar 8, 2017

The movie goes to great lengths to put you in Barry's head space, so when it's time to cash in on that build up, it works.

Full Review | Jan 17, 2017

Solid bio envisions young Obama; lots of cursing.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 3, 2017

These moments proceed like comic-book panels, each communicating a single point, with little nuance for us to discover.

Full Review | Dec 29, 2016

Gandhi's touch is generally light and he exploits the city's ethnic mosaic with great effectiveness in the supporting cast.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 21, 2016

With what lies ahead, moreover, director Vikram Gandhi's modest biopic, Barry, a year in his life, provides a kind of comfort watching.

Full Review | Dec 21, 2016

A sharp, well observed picture, one that's not just one president's story but also a sly examination of how race isn't always the major thing that divides us.

Full Review | Dec 21, 2016

It's a marvelous movie, made even more so by the time in which it's being released.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Dec 21, 2016

Ashley Judd provides emotional depth as Barack's mother, and Jason Mitchell and Ellar Coltrane deliver stellar work as friends of Barry's who remind of us of the multiple worlds he inhabits -- and the multiple worlds he will have to navigate.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 21, 2016

To its credit, "Barry" never aims for profound statements about Obama. Instead, it presents an interesting portrait of someone navigating between cultures in a country that continues to insist on labeling.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 21, 2016

Much as with Southside With You, Barry is buoyed by its tremendous lead performer.

Full Review | Dec 19, 2016

What Barry most captures is an Obama struggling to find his identity and his place in the world, highly attuned to his surroundings.

Full Review | Dec 16, 2016

Barry is about someone trying - and often failing - to fuse to any group that will have him. He uses charm like a chisel. He's always hacking into people's armor to convince them he belongs

Full Review | Original Score: A | Dec 16, 2016

"At the time of his death," Obama would later write, "my father remained a myth to me both more or less than a man." The same is true of the man we see in Barry.

Full Review | Dec 16, 2016

[Barry's] search for an identity is the ignition and combustion of the film. The exhaust, however, comes courtesy of Philip Morris. And the odor, like that surrounding the film itself, is of provocation in service of no cogent point.

Full Review | Dec 16, 2016

As a movie, that narrative spine is slim, to say the least, making Barry interesting in places but never particularly dramatic or engaging.

Full Review | Dec 16, 2016