BOB TREVINO LIKES IT - Mark Reviews Movies

Bob Trevino Likes It, Roadside Attractions

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Review by Mark Dujsik | March 20, 2025

Lily (Barbie Ferriera) has a father, but that relationship is more a matter of biology than anything else. Bob (John Leguizamo) doesn't have a child, but he would make a fantastic dad. These two characters meet completely by chance online near the start of Bob Trevino Likes It, and the resulting bond between them is complicated in just how much the two want and need from each other.

It's also, though, incredibly simple in the eyes of writer/director Tracie Laymon, because each can recognize the ache of what's missing in the other's life. Both of them are willing, not necessarily to attempt to fill that void or to serve as a substitute, but to simply be there for the other person.

Laymon's debut feature seems to know these characters inside and out, and more importantly, it possesses deep compassion and respect for them and their emotional desires and necessities. That's important, because Lily and Bob don't seem to have that quality when they look at themselves.

Lily only sees a young woman of 25 who's the result of a broken home, who keeps failing her father—the only family she has left—in every way imaginable (or imaginary, given the man's personality), and whose life seems to be stuck before it even has had a chance to really begin. Meanwhile, Bob's a middle-aged guy who keeps mostly to himself, doesn't have any friends of whom to speak, works a thankless job for and countless hours at a small construction company to keep himself occupied, and truly loves his wife but can barely talk to her about anything except their respective schedules. It'd be easy to say they want more out of life, except neither appears to be in a position or of a mind to believe that there could be more to expect out of it.

Laymon quickly but thoroughly gives us a sense of these two at the start. We watch as Lily is at the beck and call of her father Robert (French Stewart), and yes, the coincidence of the men's names is important for several reasons. Robert has recently moved into a mobile retirement community, where he's inordinately proud to be the youngest man there. Robert wants a new wife, has plenty of prospects, and asks Lily to join him at dinner with the one he believes to be the most promising candidate. It's on account of liking this woman or finding her interesting, because Robert's the kind of guy who only cares about superficial things.

He's much worse than that, however, and one of the admirable things about Laymon's screenplay is that it doesn't give the father any kind of out for his personality and behavior. The man we initially meet is the man Robert is—shallow, judgmental, emotionally distant or completely removed from anyone beyond himself. The story's premise comes out of Robert blaming Lily for her understandable inability to keep all of her father's dating prospects straight at that dinner, and since Robert is so selfish and petty and unsympathetic of any other person on the planet, he cuts off contact with his daughter over an easy-to-make mistake.

Bob, the good and hard-working one with that name, has a good reason that some might see him as isolated, because he is. The film holds back on revealing this information, because Bob's the kind of man who's private about his own life (in a way Robert likely could never imagine). We watch him for a bit in his regular routine, working in a trailer at the company, going home to eat at the dinner table while his wife Jeanie (Rachel Bay Jones) does her scrapbooking in the living room, and heading back to work, because there's nothing else that he wants to say or do at home.

The two meet after Lily, whose repeated calls to her father looking for forgiveness go ignored and unreciprocated, finds a profile for a "Bob Trevino" without a picture on social media. Hoping it belongs to her father, she sends a friend request, and being the polite guy that he is, Bob starts "liking" Lily's posts.

There's the potential, as well as a bit of fear, that Laymon might take this setup to more comedic ends, based on the initial misunderstanding and the way Lily starts talking about Bob as if he is her father—mainly in her a job as a caretaker to Daphne (Lauren "Lolo" Spencer), who'd also like Lily to be her actual friend. To be clear, the film is occasionally funny, although that's because it laughs with these characters and not at them, such as when Lily's life story, a plain fact for her, renders a trainee counselor to inconsolable sobs.

No, Laymon smartly avoids turning this into a farce of miscommunication and unspoken expectations, because that's not the point of this story or the purpose of these characters. After clearing up the early mistake and the young woman's innocent game of emotional transference, Lily and Bob talk in messages online and on the phone, during in-person meetings and trips, and with a level of honesty that neither has had a chance to or much wanted to in the past.

We listen as Lily gets into why her father's absent love and approval would mean so much to her. We listen as Bob explains the tragedy that has come between him and his wife, as well as made him so introverted, resigned to his life as it is, and maybe a little afraid to connect with others. We watch, too, as these two help each other through those fears and worries and doubts by doing what they have been doing their entire lives: the best they can under the circumstances.

The result is a disarmingly empathetic film, with terrific, lived-in performances from Ferreira, who has a deeply sympathetic and melancholy way of making Lily seem as if her entire existence is an apology for itself, and Leguizamo, whose Bob has the air of a warm hug despite or because of the brave face he puts forward to the world. Bob Trevino Likes It transcends what may seem like a gimmicky story with its rooted humanity, but Laymon's film saves one bittersweet surprise for the very end, when she reveals this isn't even a gimmick.

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