Review | Michelle Obama in Netflix’s Becoming: ‘fixing’ Barack, Oprah book launch and more in documentary of former US first lady

After so many momentous years in spotlights owned and operated by other people, it’s no wonder Michelle Obama wanted to regain control of her life, her horizons, her image and the “former first lady” phase of her story.

On its own terms Becoming, the Netflix documentary based on her 2018 memoir, is more proficient than distinctive. I say this having just read her bestseller, an eloquent and lasting Chicago story. There, too, she controlled the telling of the narrative, with inspiring results.

With a running time of 89 minutes, director Nadia Hallgren’s smoothly engineered film delivers a primer on Michelle Obama’s upbringing in Chicago’s South Shore neighbourhood and her life and career pre-Barack Obama, before her deep, disquieting dive into the glare and scrutiny of national politics.

It was a “swerve”, to use a word that comes up often in her memoir, that Michelle Obama never really wanted. Her book is about how she kept her hands on the steering wheel of her life, often amid the vitriol of a nation hell-bent on division and terrified of history in the making.

The Netflix project is comprised largely of live footage from Obama’s 34-city book tour. There are a few bookstore appearances, and many visits with some wonderful, clear-eyed students at schools around America, including her alma mater, Whitney M. Young Magnet High School in Chicago.

Mostly, though, Obama played the superstar arena circuit, as when she launched the tour at Chicago’s United Centre with Oprah Winfrey. In a prayer circle backstage, Obama and her team bow their heads before the event that so many still talk about. They certainly do in my house.