Movie Review: ROB PEACE

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: August 16th, 2024 / 02:48 AM

ROB PEACE movie poster | ©2024 Republic Pictures

Rating: R
Stars: Jay Will, Mary J. Blige, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Michael Kelly, Mare Winningham, Camila Cabello, Chance K. Smith, Jelani Dacres, Benjamin Papac, Marjorie Johnson
Writer: Chiwetel Ejiofor, based on the book THE SHORT AND TRAGIC LIFE OF ROBERT PEACE by Jeff Hobbs
Director: Chiwetel Ejiofor
Distributor: Republic Pictures
Release Date: August 16, 2024

ROB PEACE is an affecting drama, based on a true story, about a brilliant young man who is also a very compassionate, responsible human being. In other circumstances, this would result in a happy outcome for both him and society at large. The specifics of his situation, however, wind up pitting his genius and his sense of obligation against one another.

Chiwetel Ejiofor directed and wrote the screenplay for ROB PEACE. He also plays Rob’s father, Robert “Skeet” Douglas. As a filmmaker, Ejiofor depicts events with great skill and specificity, making us feel that Rob is ushering us along, as he does with his many friends.

Based on a nonfiction book by the real Rob Peace’s Yale University roommate Jeff Hobbs (played here by Benjamin Papac), ROB PEACE begins with news footage of distress and destruction.

In voiceover, we then hear Rob (played as an adult by Jay Will, as a thirteen-year-old by Chance K. Smith, and from ages seven through ten by Jelani Dacres) reading from his grad school application. He begins with “Science is my passion,” and goes on to say that he first learned about cause and effect when his father’s house burned down when he was five years old. He then relates some very personal turning points.

We begin in East Orange, New Jersey, 1987. Rob’s parents are divorced. Rob lives with mom Jackie Peace (Mary J. Blige) in the house of her parents, Frances (Marjorie Johnson) and Horace (Reggie A. Green). Skeet lives in an apartment building and has visitation rights. Jackie and Skeet don’t exactly get along, but one thing they agree on is their son’s promise – Rob already displays extraordinary mathematical gifts.

When Rob is seven years old, Skeet is arrested for the double homicide of two women in his building. Skeet is vehement about his innocence even when – three years after his arrest – the case finally goes to trial and he is convicted and given a life sentence. Rob promises, at age ten, that he’ll get Skeet out.

Although she has to work three jobs to achieve it, Jackie is determined that Rob will go to private school. So, in 1994, Rob is a student at St. Benedict’s Prep School in Newark, where the students are mostly Black. Here, Rob excels academically, makes lifelong friends, and gains a mentor in Father Leahy (Michael Kelly). Rob takes to heart the school’s motto: “Whatever hurts my brother hurts me.”

At the same time, Rob keeps digging into his father’s case, which Jackie fears will distract him from his studies, or worse. Rob graduates top of his class and is accepted into Yale.

Rob studies evolutionary biology. He ultimately wants to be a professor and have his own lab. His ambitions are admired and encouraged by new mentor Professor Durham (Mare Winningham).

Rob also proves adept at bridging the worlds of his mostly white classmates and the Black and Latinx students, who start socializing together once Rob introduces them.

So, what’s the problem? Skeet leans unceasingly on Rob to get him freed. This will necessitate a lawyer, which requires money Rob doesn’t have. Rob, a dutiful son, does everything he can to obtain the funds. Later, Rob also feels compelled to assist some pals who have previously helped him.

ROB PEACE gives us no easy answers. What does Rob owe his father? As Rob’s father, does Skeet owe it to Rob to release him of his filial burden so that he can grasp his own future? This dilemma is made uncommonly clear for us mainly through action, not words.

Filmmaker Ejiofor illustrates the ironic dynamic of Rob’s life: were he not so extraordinarily gifted with an analytical mind, he probably wouldn’t be able to come up with the financial strategies that put jeopardize the future made available to him by his gifts. But what would we do in Rob’s place? His selflessness again makes him a rare individual.

There is an inherent protest against racism and classism running through ROB PEACE. It is unlikely that a white man would have been subjected to the slipshod legal proceedings that entrap Skeet, and more unlikely still that a white youth with Rob’s talents would ever find himself in Rob’s straits. It’s even less probable that a wealthy family of any race would have to make these sorts of choices.

Rob would like Yale to be a color-blind experience. He’s much more laid-back than most of his peers about campus life, and compartmentalizes his family and his education. Still, when he’s subject to micro-aggression, he resents it. ROB PEACE also invites us to explore whether there’s a cost to Rob’s approach, and if there is, are the social benefits (unforced integration) are worth the personal price.

As the college-age Rob, Will gives a vibrant, magnetic performance. We believe in both Rob’s mind and his heart. Blige is resolute as can be as Jackie, and Ejiofor is poignant as Skeet. Kelly is touching as the teacher who truly believes in his calling and in the youths he educates.

ROB PEACE leaves us with a great deal to contemplate and, more importantly, makes us feel profoundly invested in all that it has to show us.

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