According to NBC news Michelle and Barack Obama’s daughter Malia Obama debuted a new name as her Hollywood career heats up, helping distance herself from the former president and first lady.
She is now officially going by Malia Ann for her newest film project “The Heart.”
Fans did a double take after Malia Obama’s pen name was revealed in the Sundance Institute’s “Meet the Artist” spotlight video, which introduced her as filmmaker Malia Ann, seemingly in an effort to distance herself from her powerful parents, who have also launched careers in entertainment with Higher Ground Productions.
Although the former president and first lady are now movie moguls, the two did not attend the 2024 Sundance Film Festival earlier this month, when Malia Obama, 25, made her red carpet debut at the premiere of The Heart.
Malia Obama described her project as “an odd little story, somewhat of fable, abut a man grieving the death of his mother after she leaves him an unusual request in her will,” as she put it in her Sundance spotlight.
While the film—which was produced by Donald Glover’s company Gilga—was Malia Obama’s first time directing, she already has writing credits under her belt as a staff writer on his Amazon Prime show “Swarm.”
“She’s a very professional person,” Swarm’s co-creator Janine Nabers said of the Harvard grad in a January 2023 Vanity Fair interview. “She’s an incredible writer and artist.”
Glover also echoed the sentiments, singing Malia Obama’s praises and noting her famous parents didn’t play a role in how she was treated on set.
“I feel like she’s just somebody who’s gonna have really good things coming soon,” he told Vanity Fair in March 2022. “Her writing style is great. We can’t be easy on her just because she’s the [former] President’s daughter.”
Malia’s Movie Trashed by Reviewers
According to Newsweek the film received a ton of negative reviews, a number of which appeared to be politically motivated.
“Honoring her father’s legacy by dropping a giant bomb and not receiving any criticism for it,” said one critic in reference to former President Obama’s military strikes while in office.
In the same vein, another reviewer said that they watched the film in the presence of the Obamas in Chicago. The critic added that they “should’ve turned around and asked Malia’s dad what he was doing with those drones in Syria from 2012 to 2015.”
Playing on previous accusations of nepotism, one skipped reviews altogether to ask: “Can you really be a true indie filmmaker if your dad was President?”
Also not focusing on the film at hand, another took aim at Malia Ann’s familial wealth and connections.
After stating that they found the film to be “fine,” although “a little bit episodic,” the Letterboxd user said:
“Issue here is honestly that this kid just doesn’t get to fail. Your first short film has a shitload of money thrown at it Donald Glover producing and you walk into Sundance….
“Wasn’t this a thing for indies back in the day? You should be allowed to be mid when you are learning and I think what rubs people the wrong way is getting to be mid on a national scale. You should have the opportunity to f*** up small scale but I can only imagine we get a Malia Ann (who are you fooling here girl just own it) feature film within two years… Malia I bet you’re on Letterboxd reading these so please god your life will be easier if you just own it.
“It is so funny that basically the ambition of our political ruling class is actually just to make FX shows… like girl you could start your own kingdom in Illinois if you so chose.”
To be clear last month, The New York Times’ Kyle Buchanan described The Heart as “well-shot” and “a promising debut, though there’s no juicy allegory here for political pundits to uncover, just a short film about two sad souls.
“You wouldn’t even suspect it came from a former first daughter, though in-the-know types might wonder if the ‘Steven and Kate’ thanked in the closing credits are Spielberg and Capshaw, a husband and wife who can ensure a well-connected debut.”
