Becoming, review: on tour with Michelle Obama, the rock star First Lady
Remember when the biggest faux pas of the US presidency was Michelle Obama hugging the Queen? Simpler times. While the current occupant of the White House urges us to inject Domestos, distraction arrives in the form of Becoming, a new Netflix film about the former First Lady.
It is structured like a rock star documentary, but with a book tour instead of a concert tour. And what is Obama if not a rock star? She draws screaming crowds to arenas. Fans go weak and weepy in her presence. Before heading on stage she holds a prayer circle with her entourage, in a scene straight out of Madonna’s fly-on-the-wall film Truth or Dare (or In Bed with Madonna, as it was known here). Her stage clothes are blingtastic. “When I look at this suit I do see Elvis, and I don’t have a problem with that,” says her stylist, eyeing up an outfit bedecked with diamante.
I can testify to this star power, having attended two of Obama’s events in London - one at a sold-out Southbank Centre, another at a girls’ school in a deprived borough. Imagine a TED talk to the power of a thousand. This is the period that Becoming covers, as Obama promoted her memoir at the end of 2018, beginning with a launch in her home city of Chicago. We see her being interviewed on stage several times, and on each occasion she serves up something quotable about her life in the White House, her relationship with Barack, how a girl from the South Side of Chicago went to Princeton and Harvard and a career in law and still felt she wasn’t doing enough.
But the key to her popularity is that she delivers all this inspirational stuff in an utterly down-to-earth way (and with great comic timing). So she explains that her last morning in the White House was spent shepherding friends of daughters Sasha and Malia out of the door, because they’d begged for a final sleepover. She jokes about her first meeting with Barack, when he turned up late and she dismissed the idea of dating him. In a world of celebrities carefully curating their lives via Instagram, Michelle Obama comes across as wonderfully normal.
The problem this presents is that the best fly-on-the-wall documentaries let us peek behind the curtain. Think of Elton John’s hissy fits in Tantrums and Tiaras, or the Bros twins in meltdown in After the Screaming Stops. Oh my goodness, the viewer gawps, this is what they’re really like behind the scenes. In the case of Obama, there is no division between her private and public personas. Openness is her brand. Plus, this was all filmed 18 months ago, so there are no great revelations. If you're a fan of hers, you've heard it all before.
Still, if you're a fan of hers, there is plenty here to enjoy. It's entertaining to see her goofing around with her security detail and her brother, and moving to hear her talk about her late father, about the racism she has encountered throughout her life (a roommate at Princeton moved out because her mother didn’t want her sharing with a black girl), about her grandfather’s grandmother being a slave. Little behind-the-scenes details are telling, such as the way that the Obamas make a point of thanking the staff as they leave a hotel via the kitchens.
If you're itching to know what she thinks of Melania, or to hear her let rip about the current POTUS, you'll be disappointed. She is too classy for that. Only once does she appear to depart from positivity, when she talks about feeling let down by the electorate. “I understand the people who voted for Trump. [But] the people who didn’t vote at all, the young people, the women - that’s when you think, man, people think this is a game… It wasn’t just in this election but every midterm, every time Barack didn’t get the Congress he needed, that was because our folks didn’t show up. After all that work, they just couldn’t be bothered to vote at all. That’s my trauma.”
Barack himself ambles into view about half an hour in but doesn’t stick around - this is a film about Michelle, not him. Their daughters make a brief appearance at the end. But what sticks with you are the shining faces of the girls who meet Obama, at book signings and community events. She makes them feel valued, and that is entirely deliberate. “When somebody walks up to me - don’t look around, don’t look beyond them, look them in the eye and take in their story,” she explains. Other rock stars - and residents of the White House - please take note.
