DAVID BIANCULLI

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BECOMING
May 6, 2020  | By David Bianculli

Netflix, 3:00 a.m. ET

 
DOCUMENTARY PREMIERE: Maybe there’s no way to approach this new Netflix documentary, which profiles and shadows former First Lady Michelle Obama as she embarks on her nationwide book tour for her 2018 memoir Becoming, without being political. But frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. This special has impressive shades of scale: It includes not only the giant arena tour venues, with the author interviewed by the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Gayle King and Stephen Colbert, but private meals with her mother and brother and friends, and intimate book-club chats, and lots and lots of small sessions with young people – sessions which, like the scene of her reacting to people waiting on line for her to sign the copy of Becoming they’ve just purchased, are wonderful to witness. So are the C-SPAN clips of the Obamas on the campaign trail, introducing themselves to potential voters in 2008. There’s a lot of history here, but there’s a real person, too, and this Becoming documentary, the first project generated by the Obamas under their lucrative Netflix deal, reveals some impressively unvarnished glimpses of her. If that sounds partisan, it’s only because I’m always voting for quality television.
 
 
 
 
 
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