The Education of Auma Obama

The Education of Auma Obama is a promising yet entirely pointless documentary revolving around the exploits of Barack Obama’s half-sister, Auma Obama. Filmmaker Branwen Okpako offers up a fairly interesting opening half hour revolving around the history of Obama’s family, with the peek into the lives of both Barack Obama’s father and grandfather certainly intriguing enough to initially justify the movie’s existence. By that same token, however, there does reach a point at which the film begins to resemble a glorified home movie – as Okpako places a consistent emphasis on sequences of a decidedly underwhelming nature (eg Auma tours her childhood home). The degree to which Okpako subsequently pads out the proceedings is nothing short of oppressive, as the filmmaker, in an effort at justifying the movie’s feature-length running time, offers up utterly inconsequential stretches revolving around, for example, Auma’s studies at a German university. (Honestly, who cares?) By the time the emphasis shifts to Auma’s political exploits, it’s become utterly impossible to work up the slightest bit of enthusiasm for anything that Okpako presents to the viewer – although, having said that, there’s some intimate home-movie footage of Barack that all-too-temporarily buoys one’s now non-existent interest.

*1/2 out of ****