Bob Trevino Likes It

Grade: A

If you loved The Holdovers and A Real Pain, then Bob Trevino Likes It will be right up your alley. It’s this year’s sweet, funny, sometimes sad, warm hug in the vein of the aforementioned, and I will mention it among those titles when the next one like it comes along. It’s a glimpse into the beauty of life. It has its own specific, unique rhythm and tone that I don’t remember seeing quite this way in any other movie. You should give yourself the gift of experiencing it.

In the end credits, we find out that this story really happened – and to the writer/director (Tracie Laymon), no less. The would-be Laymon “character” is personified as 25-year-old Lily Trevino, played by Barbie Ferreira from Nope and Euphoria. She works as a nursing aide, making house calls to Daphne (Lauren ‘Lolo’ Spencer), who is about her age. She recently broke up with her boyfriend; a series of texts he meant to send to another girl accidentally went to Lily. Her mother is an addict, and left the picture when Lily was very young. Her father, Bob (French Stewart) singlehandedly raised her.

Bob is in the neighborhood of 60, and brags about being the youngest resident of his retirement community. Their relationship gets strained when Lily, on one night as a third wheel on a date with a woman Bob is really trying to “close the deal” with, blows it by getting details mixed up with other women he’s been out with. (Bob wanted her to think she was the only one he’d been seeing.) Being a chronic overreactor, he gets mad and ghosts her. 

After some time goes by with no word, she looks to see if he’s on social media, and finds and friends a Bob Trevino on Facebook. It’s not her dad. It’s 50-year-old Bob, played by John Leguizamo, in one of his best performances. He has been happily married for decades. No children. Like Lily, he, too, has had some tragedy in his life, in the incomplete family department. They form an online friendship which becomes an in-person, real life one.

This isn’t your cookie cutter May/December “will they or won’t they” potential romance. It really is just a sweet friendship. The movie lets them breathe and hang out and play basketball and fix clogged toilets and just BE. The conflicts that arise feel entirely earned and not shoehorned in for purposes of furthering the plot. When Leguizamo’s Bob learns that he shares a name with her father, and begins to sense that this is a copy-and-paste job to try to compensate for something, the way that it’s handled is refreshing. Ferreira is delightful, and I hope this makes her a star. The movie has sneaky humor and tears. Good luck getting through the scene with the puppies. And my biggest laugh is in the moment that ends with a character deciding to start the car and leave. You’ll know the scene, and why it’s so funny, when you see it.

At first, I wasn’t sure what to make of some dialogue in the last scene. We seem to be made to think it’s going to play out one way, only to be taken in another direction. I was about to ding it as a cheap narrative fake-out. As I’ve let it sit with me, I believe this person was initially erring on the side of caution and getting some questions answered before giving somebody what they give them. This is a triumphantly beautiful film. I can’t wait for you to see it. I can’t wait for you to fall in love with it. Bob Trevino Likes It gets my like.

Grade: A