Thoughts on I Like It Like That

On Criterion, I watched I Like It Like That, a 1994 dramedy written and directed by Darnell Martin, making her the first Black woman to direct a studio film. The film starred Luna Lauren Vélez as Lisette, a married mother of three kids in the Bronx who is struggling to keep her family together, between her cheating fboy of a husband Chino (Jon Seda), who is in jail for stealing a stereo during a neighborhood blackout; financially supporting her family; her racist mother in-law (Rita Moreno) who is anti-Black and blames her granddaughter’s textured curly hair on Lisette being Afro-Latina; and her loud, roughhousing kids, where her son is being lured into crime by local kids to prove he’s a “man.”

    Lisette hustles to get local modeling work, angles her way to be the assistant of a record executive to promote a Latino music group, and is stressed out by her family and her nosy neighborhood and trying to develop her own sense of identity and independence.

    I had seen this movie many years ago, but didn’t remember it well. I really liked it, and like the depiction of the worn-out Bronx old-school apartment, the messiness of the home, and the closeness of the neighborhood, despite everyone being in each other’s business. Luna Lauren Vélez is really great in this, and I mainly know of her from this movie and voicing Miles Morales’ mother in the animated Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse movies. Jon Seda is cute, but his character pissed me off throughout the movie, someone who definitely coasted on good looks but not brains.

    One of the best parts of the movie is Alexis, Lisette’s transgender sister, who lives in the same apartment building as Lisette and her family. Despite that Alexis was played by Jesse Borrego, a cis straight man, his performance was incredibly touching and caring, playing a woman who is accepted as trans by the local community, but not by her parents, who cruelly reject her. She has a small cat that she carries around her home, and there is a cute exchange where she tells Lisette that her yelling is scaring “the baby.” Lisette goes, “That’s not a baby, that’s a cat.” Alexis quietly adds, “Baby cat.”

    This scene is a highlight of the pressure that Lisette is under from her family and trying to get $1500 to bail her husband out of jail, and hiding in the bathroom while nearly having a breakdown.