BOB TREVINO LIKES IT
Directing: C+
Acting: B+
Writing: C
Cinematography: B
Editing: B-
I feel like I should like Bob Trevino Likes This less than I did, but a great cast sometimes makes up for a lot. It’s also possible that I am simply aging into the film’s target demographic, easily moved by rote emotional manipulation.
But I’m also not ready to sell myself short! And great credit and appreciation is due to Barbie Ferreira, a clearly excellent performer, giving the character of Lily Trevino far more nuance than the script asks of her. The same can be said, albeit to a lesser degree, of John Leguizamo, as Bob Trevino, the guy Lily finds on Facebook who happens to have the same name as her wildly selfish—and I do mean wild—dad, and strikes up a friendship with him. Leguizamo plays bob as an understated loner, and has an unusual, familial chemistry with Ferreira as the two forge a very odd but healing relationship. Leguizamo is a veteran actor with a certain amount of well-earned respect; and I pray I get to see Ferreira in other films as characters with greater dimension.
And to be clear: Lily has far more dimension than anyone else in Bob Trevino Likes It, directly because of Ferreira’s performance. With the simplest and subtlest gestures, movements, and expressions, she is captivating onscreen. She took an undercooked part and ran with it, in all the best ways.
Unfortunately, Bob Trevino Likes It is also bogged down, by the character that is Lily’s biological father, Robert Trevino (French Stewart)—a guy so deeply selfish, narcissistic and unlikable that he instantly becomes a caricature. Screenshots of Facebook messages are shown at the end of the film, indicating that the film was—here comes that phrase again—”inspired by” a real experience, had by writer-director Tracie Laymon. Well, to say that she contrived a fictionalized version of the story would be an understatement.
Lily’s father, who has started going by “Robert” because he thinks the women he’s dating prefer it, breaks off contact with Lily when she can’t get the details of a date right when she tags along, at his request. This is when she connects with Bob on Facebook, sending a friend request she thinks she’s sending to her dad. Weeks later, Robert finally calls and asks to meet up, insisting she break plans she’s already made (with Bob), only to give her an itemized list to demonstrate how much raising her has literally cost him.
I had difficulty getting over what a piece of work Robert was, with zero redeeming qualities—forming the perfect codependent relationship with a daughter who has zero self-worth. Do people like this even really exist? Broadly speaking they do, but even pieces of shit have some humanity, and Robert really isn’t given any. Conversely, Bob has a wife, Jeanie (Rachel Bay Jones), a competitive scrapbooker who throws herself into implausibly winning the grand prize every year as a means of coping with the loss of a small child roughly a decade before. Jeanie is more pleasant than Robert, but does not have much more dimension—and she is used later in an unforgivable way. We are clearly meant to expect by her demeanor that she will be cold and unkind to Lily, only to bait-and-switch the audience out of nowhere, suddenly becoming incredibly sweet.
Who the hell are these people? Not even characters in small parts are given any grace. When Lily visits Robert’s home desperate to get him to answer the door, clearly in despair, the neighbors and a cop insist she leave and not disturb any residents, without offering a shred of empathy. It’s like the universe of Bob Trevino Likes It is populated by the soulless—except for the two main characters we’re meant to feel for, of course.
Indeed: feel for them, we do. In the end, Bob Trevino Likes It works in spite of itself. It has an unusual and compelling premise, the kind that can only be ripped from real life—and it’s refreshing that not only is there no romance even hinted at, no other character suspects it either. It would have made sense for Laymon to explore further into the idea of Lily latching onto Bob as a surrogate father, which makes much of the story here far more awkward than it often even seems intended to be. Instead, we all just take it on faith that they’re just friends, apparently with no strange daddy-issues dynamic. But Daphne (Lauren 'Lolo' Spencer), the young woman Lily works for doing in-home care, notes that it’s weird to suddenly make friends with a sixty-year-old man on the internet—and she’s one of the few characters here talking sense.
That said, I’m fine with trusting that this unusual relationship is sweet and rewarding, even healthy. I just resent how the story written to support it is so contrived, to the point of effectiveness: thanks in particular to Ferreira’s excellent performance, I was still moved to tears. I enjoyed watching these characters hang out together, grow, and learn from each other. I was saddened when they shared or experienced loss. I had a mostly pleasant time sifting through the trappings of mediocrity.
We’re the only real people in this movie, right?
Overall: B-