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| Barbie Ferreira and Lauren Spencer in Bob Trevino Likes It Photo: courtesy of Roadside Attractions |
Tracie Laymon's feature début, Bob Trevino Likes It, draws on the personal experience of a friendship she struck up online with a stranger. The story follows Lily Trevino (Barbie Ferreira), who, after her father, Robert Trevino (French Stewart) expels her from his life, tries to connect with him online. Only, the person she tries to 'friend' isn't her father, but Bob Trevino (John Leguizamo), a married but lonely construction company manager. When he senses a kindred spirit in Lily, the two strike up a friendship that offers the connection they're both desperately searching for.
Laymon's previous credits include her 2007 début short, Worse, about a teenager who must reckon with a failed suicide attempt, and Up, from the same year, which follows a 17-year-old, who, fed up with her father and boyfriend, uses fantasy as an escape. Her successive shorts include Inside (2009) a dramatic tale about a man who believes something is growing inside of him, and Ghosted (2020), a narrated tale about a woman who realises the man she has fallen in love with is haunted by a ghost. She has also directed two episodes of the comedy series Goodnight Burbank (2011) and a segment of the 2011 anthology Girls! Girls! Girls!
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| Barbie Ferreira and John Leguizamo in Bob Trevino Likes It Photo: courtesy of Roadside Attractions |
In conversation with Eye For Film, Laymon discussed the personal roots of her feature début, empowering ourselves with laughter and tears, delivering a positive message about social media, and how we can affect change.
Paul Risker: Telling stories is an act of vulnerability because you're putting yourself out there for potential criticism and rejection. When a story has personal roots, it only heightens the vulnerability. Also, for the audience, a film can be a mirror that creates a safe space and encourages us to lower our guard. It's important to consider vulnerability when making and talking about films.
Tracie Laymon: It's an amazing thing to talk about that is not spoken about enough because we're putting ourselves out there. Across the board, some of the films that have affected me the most were filmmakers telling personal stories and opening themselves up. A lot of the time, we think we tell these stories because we have to, otherwise it wouldn't be worth being vulnerable to so many strangers.
[…] I've had an incredible journey with vulnerability on this film. I originally thought, 'Oh, I've healed. Now that I'm on the other side of it all, I'm just going to tell this story, so I can share my healing.' Then, on set, I thought, 'Oh, this is really vulnerable. But I have to be strong because I need to be there for the cast and crew.'
I overcame it because my why was so much bigger than my fear, and so I was just gonna do it. I was so busy making it, that I never thought about what it would feel like to have it on screens all around the world. Then we had these screenings, and in the beginning, I was so nervous, but it was so beautiful because people would come up to me and tell me what part they could relate to.
So, it's the audiences that helped me get over that vulnerability and fear, because I started to realise that it's not just my story, it's our story now. It's out there, and if I think it's mine, then I'm gonna be affected by every little critique. Realising that I've turned pain and vulnerability into art, and now it's ours collectively, makes me feel less vulnerable.
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| Barbie Ferreira in Bob Trevino Likes It Photo: courtesy of Roadside Attractions |
PR: We're more connected than ever, and yet we're more disconnected and divided than ever. Your film isn't naïve to the difficulties of day-to-day life, and it doesn't disavow the struggle, but its optimistic spirit sees hope as a necessity.
TL: I really think the joy and the sorrow of life go together, and that's how I see the world. If you're grieving, it's because you've experienced love. Or if you're going through something awful, sometimes it's absurd, and the only way to cope is to laugh at how absolutely horrible it is. That's how I've gotten through life, and the difference is laughing with people rather than at them.
If you're laughing because you can relate, that's different from laughing because you're mocking somebody. I don't think that this film mocks anybody. There's a lot of power in sitting together and laughing at those painful things, and crying at those happy things, because we can all relate and be reminded of our shared humanity.
PR: I appreciate that gesture that we're not laughing at, we're laughing with the characters.
TL : I've sat with the film at festivals and private screenings in different countries and all around the US. I found that people laugh at different things. You think the humour is universal, but what I've noticed is that the age group will have a lot to do with which parts they find funny, because some of them haven't experienced that yet. So, they're just sad that someone's going through that, but some of us on the other hand, with a couple of decades of dating experience or being rejected by our parents, see the truthful absurdity. We see ourselves, and it's almost that laughing at it helps us heal — the character's experiencing it, and we're experiencing it with them. How funny it is that we all have to experience these awful things.
PR: The scene with the trainee therapist made me laugh because it resonated on a personal level. Often, people struggling with their mental and emotional health and wellbeing feel like they're abnormal. They struggle to realise it's a common and shared experience. The film can intimately reach out and connect with its audience, and as you say, resonate in different ways.
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| Barbie Ferreira and John Leguizamo in Bob Trevino Likes It Photo: courtesy of Roadside Attractions |
TL: That really happened to me in my freshman year of college [laughs]. I never forgot it. They say tragedy plus time is comedy. Also, when your wounds have turned into scars, you can have compassion and humour about what you've been through, but when there are still wounds, it's hard. And the thing you said earlier about how we're so connected and divided, I think about that a lot.
When I got the internet and social media, they were these exciting things that were going to offer connections. I don't know if people knew I felt like a loner, but inside I did. I thought the internet and social media were going to help me find others like me, and I'd meet interesting people all around the world that I never would have met. So, I was in awe of these things.
The internet and social media have turned into something where it's now about looking at how divided and different we are, and how it's going to make us all angry. I wanted to remind people it doesn't have to be that way, and we can use these tools for good — we can use them for connection.
The fact that this is inspired by a true story, I feel even more compelled to say this because it's not a fantasy. You and I would not be talking today unless a stranger had been kind to me on the internet — a stranger who had no idea what I was going through. So, this is the world in which we live if we choose to make these choices and live this way.
PR: There's a toxic perception surrounding social media, which is often justified but, on the flip side, there's a positive narrative. It's comparable to religion, and the idea of separating your faith from the institution. Online culture and social media can be understood along similar lines, specifically how people are the disruptive influence.
TL: We use the tool; the tool doesn't use us. So, how are you using the tool? Are you using it to connect, to put light into the world? And I don't mean toxic positivity. I know there are a lot of really challenging and horrible things going on in the world, but are we using it to unite us, or are we using it to divide us? You don't have to be a part of the group that's using it to divide.
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| French Stewart in Bob Trevino Likes It Photo: courtesy of Roadside Attractions |
You can see our shared humanity and one positive comment has so much more power than the negative ones. We see all these negative things, and we think that we don't have the power, but anybody that's been on the other side of that knows it just needs one person to stand up, and you can be that person.
PR: The story and characterisation feel genuine in how feelings of insecurity and the way disruptive thoughts can get loose in one's mind. The characters are played in a way where they're engaging, but they feel disconnected and lost. Throughout the film, you are attentive to observing this conflict between the inner and outer lives of the characters.
TL: I think it's a subconscious observation for a lot of people. I told my incredible cinematographer, John Rosario, that I wanted to look at this with a feminine gaze. Not a female gaze because we're inviting men in, but a feminine gaze. And across the board with the other departments, we wanted to do whatever it takes to have you see people, and not only look at them.
I have experienced a lot of [the film's] trauma, and I was trying to invite people in to empathise with someone that had these traits and symptoms of anxiety, being triggered and people-pleasing. We're not doormats; we're survivors. It's a strength to have gone through all of that and still be hopeful.
We put wide-angle lenses on the close-ups because, from what I've gone through, I can sense micro shifts and interpersonal dynamics. I feel close and far away at the same time. So, I want to be close, but there's a conflict because I feel very far away, but you're also right there.
A lot of the lenses that we chose to use to place you in her experience, like the change of frame rate, and even something, for example, like when she almost gets hit by the car outside the diner. I chose to do that because otherwise I thought the audience would judge her for getting upset. I thought if I have her almost get hit by the car outside the diner, then the audience is going to gasp. And if the audience does that, then they'll be with her. It's so easy to judge people and if we can just try to hold some space for what they might be experiencing in their body and their feelings, we can actually help a lot of people heal, more than by judging.
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| Barbie Ferreira and John Leguizamo in Bob Trevino Likes It Photo: courtesy of Roadside Attractions |
PR: To say that cinema can change the world will often be met with skepticism. However, a film has the power to create a shift in someone's perspective, whether that's empathising with a character, seeing a culture from a different point of view or being exposed to new ideas. If we reframe it as small changes or a trickle effect, then yes, cinema can provoke significant change.
TL: There's a butterfly effect, and it also goes back to this stranger being kind to me on the internet. He never knew during those years how he was changing my life, yet he chose to continue, and this movie exists because of that. So, if we experience micro-shifts of change because of a film, and then we go home, and we're just slightly different to our family, how are they then slightly different to the people in their lives?
There's getting to be a lot of men that have told me personally that they can relate to the French Stewart character. That is something they'd never really seen in themselves. They would tell me it's interesting to identify with the person that is the villain, but I don't like to think of people as heroes or villains. So, they've become introspective, and they've looked at how they treat their own children or families in general.
Micro-shifts have great power; don't knock baby steps. Sometimes the greatest power is in that first baby step, because if you can just make a little change, then you've done something. Then you do a little more and a little more, and one day you wake up, and you see the effect. And even if you can't see it, you have to have faith that there's something greater happening.
Bob Trevino Likes It is currently on release in US theatres.
