Film: Bob Trevino Likes It
Writer and Director: Tracie Layman
Starring: Barbie Ferreira, John Leguizamo, Rachel Bay Jones, French Stewart, Lauren Spencer
Dear Filmmakers,
There are not really words to describe the beauty of this film made by Tracie Laymon, Bob Trevino Likes It.
What I am remembering is the eyes of John Leguizamo, who stands as a man in a different way than many films present a man.
He’s a man. A person. He cares and he has heart, and there are so many tears in this movie, and the tears are what makes it a cleansing.
Sometimes thing have such a deep impact that you can’t speak about them. Sometimes things feel like the largest mass, like a mountain on Jupiter. I am reminded of Tim O’Brien’s words in The Things They Carried, when he talks about war stories. He says that when you read a war story, there is no tale of morality or sense of justice. The truth just makes you say, “Oh.”
I have taught The Things They Carried in a few college classrooms, and to high school students as well. While many of us have not been to war, we have our own war stories—times in our lives that traumatize us and make us laugh crazily, or make us change the way we view people and situations. We have times where the world has seemed like chaos, and we are trying to follow orders, only there are no orders, and there doesn’t seem to be a God, either. Sometimes we are the ones playing God. Other times, we are doing what we hope God would never do.
So while I recognize all the acting in this movie is superb, and Barbie Ferreira is stunning and amazing and brilliant as the main actress, I am thinking about John Leguizamo’s eyes. The eyes can’t lie. The eyes here are so vulnerable. This is a role in which John Leguizamo cannot lie or hide. It is also a role played by a Latino man at a time in this country when a casino owner decided to brand people who are Latino as “other.” What I see in John Leguizamo in this film is a vulnerable, open, kind man who has the world inside him. A world that many people may not care to know.
And here is another reason John Leguizamo means something to me. I teach high school, and our high school textbook had an article about John Leguizamo being a class clown in high school. He said he made a lot of jokes and didn’t do his work, but a teacher once pulled him aside and suggested he try comedy, and acting. He felt seen for one of the first times in his life, and he followed the advice. Look where he is.
Viola Davis, in her memoir Finding Me, also talked about a teacher who pulled her aside and showed her the application for an Upward Bound program, and told her to apply. She did, and she fell in love with acting and never turned away from it after that summer program.
We have such compartments in our minds about who influences us, and who matters. But mentorship from an older person to a younger person is a great gift we do not often speak about. We need people in our lives who see us in a way that is a little more detached yet loving, a little less invested in their own agenda or personal label. We need people who are older who can just be our friends.
As a woman, I can say that there are societal blocks that make it complicated for young women and older men to have friendships. Bob Trevino Likes It is so moving because this friendship surpasses the societal restrictions. I wish more friendships could do this. So many people stay locked in caves of their own hearts, because they assume love has to look a certain way. We think love has to fit in a box, of some form. And love is not just like that. Can you imagine trying to put air in a box and keep the air in the box? Every time you open the lid, the air comes out. There’s no point in limiting it or quantifying it or labeling it, other than to just call it friendship at root.
There are a few movies coming out these days with this theme of friendship. One has Paul Rudd, and the other is about a dog and Naomi Watts. I am not interested in rushing out to view the theme of friendship in film and write about “the theme of friendship.” I am a friend myself, and I welcome friends.
Many people do not. Many people have lost what friendship truly is. They think it is texting or commenting on social media.
What amount of money could you put on a true friendship? None. You cannot exchange money for love. There is no comparison. Money and love live in different hemispheres. Yet when money is used as a tool to show true love? That can be magical.
The hemisphere of this film, made by Tracie Layman, who seems like a humble pioneer and hero when it comes to filmmaking, is the hemisphere I’d love more of us to live and breathe in. It is real. It is really real, and true. It is om.
Love,
Ms. Wonderful
and Quiet Vinyl…