Bob Trevino Likes It (2025)
SHOULD I SEE IT?
YES
Bob Trevino Likes It is a beautiful, moving film that should speak to all of us.
Barbie Ferreira and John Leguizamo gave two performances I will be thinking about for a long, long time. A star turn for Ferreira and perhaps Leguizamo’s best work of his career.
Balances comedy and drama, finds comedy in the drama, but also shows us the power of kindness, compassion, and friendship. We need a movie like this right now. I hope it finds an audience.
NO
The few detractors of the film feel like Lily’s story in the film is the cinematic equivalent of doomscrolling, with everything she experiences.
May play as too simple a statement for some who see themselves attacked and marginalized in the world.
A quiet, tender, matter-of-fact film that may miss the mark for people expecting something more loud and bombastic.
OUR REVIEW
“It costs nothing to be kind.”
“Kindness costs nothing.”
While it is not always easy to live life with this perspective, we all make a choice whether to abide by this belief or not. It shows in how we show up for people around us, how we view the world, and how we carry ourselves with strangers and those we love.
Increasingly, this idea - this approach to dealing with what the world throws our way - has become somewhat demonized and criticized. In some circles, kindness is dismissed as weakness - something soft that defines people as pushovers or may even render them as invisible.
A movie like Bob Trevino Likes It challenges those notions. This is a tender, charming, bittersweet treasure of a film that uses kindness as armor for its main characters. Writer/director Tracie Laymon uses a real-life story of estrangement from her father as a catalyst to remind us that though taking a high road is not always easy, kindness can always prevail.
Is that a relatively simple message for these complicated times we find ourselves in? Yeah, probably. But maybe the bigger question we need to ask is why someone would be threatened by a movie and a story that reminds us that we all have the capacity for compassion and understanding.
I am not too proud to admit that I had three or maybe four productive and cathartic cries watching Bob Trevino Likes It. Maybe it was the timing. Maybe it is because beyond my family, I am searching to find consistent kindness in my life and not always finding it. Or maybe, it is because this is a humble, powerful story of connection and friendship. Something I personally think we all need right now.
Laymon’s story avoids many trap doors other movies would wander in, but is no happy-go-lucky little comedy. The opening scene is jarring, a young woman sobs, tears streaming down her face as she receives a text from her boyfriend thanking her for a wonderful night. Except the text is addressed to a different woman. And after Lily (Barbie Ferreira) writes an angry response - the kind we would expect - she deletes it, writes back “no prob” and then cries even harder.
If not for Lily’s resilience - especially in scenes with her narcissistic father, Bob (French Stewart) - the film might risk feeling like a mopey, shoegazing story of how life can pummel you over and over again. But it never does. Ferreira, who is perhaps best known for her work on the HBO series, “Euphoria,” is brilliant in conveying a character who has survived so much in her life and still finds a way to fight through her struggles, battle her anxieties, and seek to find the good in people.
Her means are rather unconventional. When her father Bob impulsively writes her out of his life, blaming a botched date on her, Lily’s loneliness leads her to the internet. On a whim, she searches Facebook for her dad and finds an account of “Bob Trevino” without a photo. She randomly sends a friend request, which is accepted, and starts a conversation.
This character named Bob Trevino, played beautifully by John Leguizamo, is a kind, hard-working contractor, whose wife Jeanie (Rachel Bay Jones) is obsessed with scrapbooking. Their marriage has endured a lot and they have reached a place of co-existing with one another. Bob and Lily strike up a friendship and agree to meet. And before people point to something inappropriate or uncomfortable about their friendship and connection, Laymon’s screenplay very clearly steers away from any signs of romantic attraction. At the risk of reducing a deeply moving film to its simplest elements, Bob and Lily both are lost and need a friend.
Laymon’s characters persevere and our connection to them comes in seeing the small moments. The stories Bob and Lily share. The way they see each other. Both work in service for others. Lily works as a live-in, home care nurse to Daphne (Lauren Spencer), a wheelchair-bound young woman who also seeks connection and could use a friend. Bob builds houses and never says no. Except when his wife wants to show him her scrapbooks. Though she competes and wins prizes for her scrapbooking creations, somewhat shamefully Bob tells Lily, “that’s her thing, you know?”
We will learn more about Lily’s life, Bob and Jeanie’s struggle, and see how these folks gain strength from seeing the good in people. Laymon’s dialogue is crisp, authentic, and full of kindness. And when the film wobbles a little in the final act to try to tie things together, a powerful ending not only brings the tears, but also reminds us that while our tomorrows may not be guaranteed, we all deserve to live a life full of love and gratitude for everything we get to experience.
Bob Trevino Likes It feels alive to me. It is a film that avoids a heavy-handed, simple view and explores friendship and connection in a nuanced and personal way. Let’s be real and honest though: the world is terrible for a lot of people right now. Resilience, strengthening resolve, and showing up for people everyday is increasingly hard, if not at times impossible.
Tracie Laymon’s film hits deep when reminding us that one person or one voice offering one moment of kindness can be foundational to repairing and restoring us. That’s all it wants to say. And in this world, and for this viewer, that was more than enough to get me to tomorrow and whatever days may come.
CAST & CREW
Starring: Barbie Ferreira, John Leguizamo, French Stewart, Lauren Spencer, Rachel Bay Jones, Ted Welch, Debra Stipe
Director: Tracie Laymon
Written by: Tracie Laymon
Release Date: March 21, 2025
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