Southside with You is a sweet, intelligent, well-crafted, wonderfully romantic, no-frills re-imagination of the first date between Barack Obama and Michelle Robinson.

The result makes you realize how few realistic and three-dimensional date movies have been made in an era of throbbing hook-up encounters and R-rated horny teen gross-outs.

Richard Tanne’s writing-directing debut deepens into a pointed, flowing conversation about the many challenges (and varieties) of African-American identity, the need for both idealism and compromise, and the importance of making peace with past disappointments in order to effect meaningful change in the future.

What makes Southside With You work so beautifully is that it could be a romantic comedy about two strangers, but because the characters are based on two people we feel we know pretty well, it adds another layer to the unfolding relationship drama.

Southside with You is a rewarding bite-sized drama, rich with characters who we already know, but also don’t really know.