‘Nepo baby’: Malia Obama’s directorial debut at Sundance invites dismissive critique

Foraying into the self-driven skilled chapter of her life by launching her directorial debut, The Heart, on the Sundance Film Festival, Malia Obama sought to

Foraying into the self-driven skilled chapter of her life by launching her directorial debut, The Heart, on the Sundance Film Festival, Malia Obama sought to be seen as her personal particular person. However, the evaluations of her brief movie weren’t as heartwarming as one might’ve foreseen.

PARK CITY, UTAH – JANUARY 18: Malia Ann Obama attends the “The Heart” Premiere on the Short Film Program 1 throughout the 2024 Sundance Film Festival at Prospector Square Theatre on January 18, 2024 in Park City, Utah. Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images/AFP (Photo by Dia Dipasupil / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA)(Getty Images through AFP)

Earlier this 12 months, Sundance launched the “Meet the Artist’ snippet, addressing ex-president Barack Obama’s eldest daughter as Malia Ann instead. She swore by her professional sobriquet to comply with her full-fledged solo advent. Yet the unsavoury tongue followed her.

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Ann described her 18-minute project in the Sundance video as “about lost objects and lonely people and forgiveness and regret”. Although it settled in sync with the Sundance-approving intellectual tone of aesthetic quiet, it didn’t sit well as a whole.

Viewers eventually took to the online movie-buff service Letterboxd to leave their reviews. While a good portion bombed her impersonal attempt at making this film, others’ negative outpour was more politically fuelled.

The Heart Reviews: Malia Obama Debut film fails to find approval

Despite the 25-year-old’s attempts to distance herself from her family’s political baggage, the same rhetoric has dragged her down again. In January 2024, The Daily Beast’s Laura Bradley outrightly dismissed her cinematic attempt by calling her out as the “Nepo Baby of the Week” in the ‘Hot Takes’ section.

Also read: Barack Obama’s daughter Malia changes her famous surname amid Hollywood career

Yet, in the same vein, the professional reviewer also labelled it fitting for the Sundance platform but forgettable.

Following suit, several reviewers on Letterboxd have treated her with harsh remarks, again reducing her to her nepotistic familial inheritance.

One of the first reviews found on the platform said: “Honoring her father’s legacy by dropping a giant bomb and not receiving any criticism for it.”

Another review charged her, slaying her, with nepotism charges: “Calling yourself ‘Malia Ann’ is not going to avert any Nepo Baby criticisms, Miss Former First Daughter.”

Yet another one rebuffed her cinematic expression with words like, “Can you really be a true indie filmmaker if your dad was President?”

Another review graded Malia’s film as a two-star attempt upon seemingly forgetting halfway who’d made the movie, owing to its “half-baked” texture. On the contrary, a reviewer brought in a mixed outlook: “want this had sufficient benefit to not simply be “the short directed by one of obama’s kids” however this was simply type of mid. i did like a few of the cinematography!”

About the Malia Ann brief movie

Malia each writes and directs the movie, which is centred round a person grieving the sudden dying of his mom. As he grapples with the devastating blow, he comes throughout an uncommon request in her will. Tunde Adebimpe and LaTonya Borsay star because the son-mother duo.

Ann’s earlier filmmaking credit embody writing for Donald Glover’s Swarm (2021) and interning on reveals like Girls and Halle Berry’s CBS title Extant.

Source: www.hindustantimes.com

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