Two strangers form an unlikely friendship, becoming the daughter and
father figure they've been seeking.
Review by
Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Tracie Laymon
Starring: Barbie Ferreira, John Leguizamo, French Stewart, Lauren "Lolo" Spencer, Rachel Bay Jones
Something nobody tells you about getting older is how abruptly
impossible it becomes to make new friends. Romance, sex, dating -
that's simple. All you need is a nice smile, healthy diet and a
studied Tinder bio: rizz is easy. Forging a meaningful platonic
companionship, not so much. Even the initiation of a date is
comparatively straightforward: you ask someone out and they either
say yes or no. But what's the equivalent for making friends?
Especially when everyone is stagnated into family life/completely
fucked due to unwieldy work hours. Where do people meet?! And, also,
maybe there is a chin-stroking correspondence to be made with the
rise of social media, platforms offering synthetic acquaintance
which unconsciously reduces the urgency to seek the real
thing...
Such notions are implicated in the opening of Tracie Laymon's
utterly delightful indie com/dram Bob Trevino Likes It, as our Gen Z
protagonist, in full on unflattering close up, ugly cries to her
mobile phone (shattered screen, shattered life, etc) as her recent
date accidentally texts her something meant for another girl he's
got on the go. More fool him, because Lily Trevino is played by
Barbie Ferreira, one of the most beautiful people on the face of the
planet, and who elevates this role which on paper (ditzy, manic) may
have been very annoying indeed but in Ferreira's fragrant hands
becomes charmingly poignant. Lily types through her tears that it's "ok," to have "a good evening." The girl is put upon. Mum left, her
only friend is the plain-talking woman (Lauren Spencer) she is a
live-in carer for, and her dad Robert (French Stewart, playing
pleasingly dubious in the film's excellent ensemble) is a low rent
hustler, the type of guy who only takes his potential paramours out
to places which accept coupons and ends up receiving their ire when
the dates discover that they are one of several he is stringing
along.
The parallels between Lily's situation and Robert's actions are
instructive, and perhaps observed by the algorithm, a digital fate
which recognises us far more than we'd like to admit, as it suggests
Lily a new Facebook friend due to the circumstances of the link
having the same name as her dad. Lily, needy and isolated (and
she's in the spring of youth! What chance do the rest of us have?)
follows it up, facilitating the actions implied by the film's
title.
This Bob happens to be played by our favourite, John Leguizamo.
Just as lonely as Lily, with a neurotic wife and rueful absence of
children, Bob reciprocates Lily's long-ish distance contact despite
his wife's (reasonable, tbf) protests that he is being catfished.
Perhaps the friendship is unusual, but Laymon renders it completely
convincing, and although the narrative acknowledges that Lily is
looking for a substitute father while Bob is indulging the daughter
he never had, the film develops the complexity of the relationship
further than such basic psychology. We see Bob fix her toilet
(excellent dadding), and Lily attempt to engage him in a game of
basketball (she is young, he is old, and despite the film's
devastating sadness it is still a comedy). But what wins is the
verisimilitude of the acquaintance. Ferreira and Leguizamo's
chemistry is profound, but the plot also sees them letting each
other down and stumbling, in the way that friends and family, found
or otherwise, inevitably do.
Occasional hyperbolic lapses do see characters behaving in unlikely
ways to suit the plot (an early example is the coupon date, who just
loses her shit in a way that makes you feel relieved for sneaky
Robert in avoiding such a potential nightmare), but the small,
beautifully realised character moments, usually via Leguizamo's
gentle performance, add up to a deeply affecting cinematic
experience and soften us for a devastating finale which I'm not sure
I'll ever fully recover from. An ugly truth which Bob Trevino Likes
It indicates is that if you make new friends, you run the risk of
losing them, too.
Bob Trevino Likes It is on
UK/ROI VOD from May 26th.
