3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Bob Trevino Likes It

2024, Tracie Laymon (feature debut) -- download

This... this is an ugly cry movie. There is a scene in the trailer, from early in the movie, where Lily Trevino (Barbie Ferreira, Mile End Kicks) goes to see a free therapist and tells them about her life; the therapist breaks down crying, ugly crying. As part of the trailer, it set our expectations of this movie pretty well. As part of the plot, it had more weight as the therapist is a free therapist, at a local clinic, and she is new at her job -- her unprofessional reaction is understandable, as Lily sits before her, telling her story matter-of-factly, bluntly, seemingly not understanding the weight of such a life that up to now, has been, frankly, horrible. Her mom, an addict, left early in Lily's life. She was raised by her horrible father and just broke up with a guy who texted Lily as if she was his other girlfriend. And yet, Lily apologized to him. And comforts the therapist. Lily seemingly accepts her terrible place in life, but the fact she is seeing a therapist suggests she knows... something is wrong.

Bob Trevino (John Leguizamo, The Happening) is unrelated to Lily. He's the construction manager in a small contracting company and he is a push-over. He is friendless, meek and disconnected from his wife, as she lives her life in scrapbooking, involving him little. They lost a child early in their marriage, and never recovered. 

Bob Trevino (French Stewart, Girls! Girls! Girls!) is Lily's father, the horrible man who blames all his woes on Lily. He's a pensioner, constantly seeking a replacement for Lily's mother, dragging her along as a sort of demented idea of a wingman, and blaming her when his own personality torpedoes any chance he has with the ladies. 

After one particular encounter, where Lily mixes up some of his recent (ex) girlfriends with the new one, he cuts her off, stops answering her calls, doesn't answer the door and literally has security called on her. He is such a horrible person, and yet he appears to be Lily's only connection. Oh, she is friends with Daphne (Lolo Spencer, The Sex Lives of College Girls), the disabled woman she is a live-in caretaker for, but Lily doesn't acknowledge that to herself nor Daphne. Unable to get hold of her father, she looks him up on Facebook and bumps into the other Bob Trevino, sending him a friend request -- I am assuming her father has already unfriended her, and she is trying to reconnect their accounts, after all FB was where he shared all the details about his latest GF with Lily. Other Bob Trevino is unfamiliar with FB but needs connection in his life as well; so he clicks Accept almost immediately followed by a Like on one of her posts. Lily is thrilled despite understanding this is an entirely different Bob Trevino.

What follows is a vignette commentary on Social Media. Lily fills up her feed with fond recollections of her life and inane daily statements ("just had the greatest lunch!"), and Bob Likes or replies on each and every one. She loves the validation, and he likes (pun intended) the interaction with someone. He also knows she appears to need something.  Eventually they begin DMing and we observe, with more than a little cringe factor, but also ... how sweet. Bob tells his wife, explains its not like that and promises he won't give Lily any money, because its just online. Then Lily's toilet explodes and ... well, she calls him. He comes over, fixes her toilet and comments, "Shit happens...." That goes up on Facebook. 

Lily and Bob become friends, and more than a little surrogate father & daughter situation. It enables both of them to open up about their feelings about life and connection. Lily is still trying to reconnect with her real father, which when he learns on Other Bob, he tries to get something out of it -- literally asks her to ask him for money. He supports his asking by giving her an itemized list of all the spending he did to raise her. He is so horrible, but with Other Bob in the picture, she is starting to see  this, for real. Sometimes you don't know how bad a situation is until you get a whiff of a better one, or more likely, you don't acknowledge its possible until you see it in front of you.

Should I make a spoiler warning? In a movie like this, things either progress to a happy level, lessons are learned and we smile at the new path laid out before us. Or, things go horribly Late Second Act wrong.

Other Bob dies. His work has always been stressful to him and the elation he feels when he quits it, gives him a heart attack. He doesn't pass immediately, he gets a few weeks with his wife, but then a second one does him in. During this period, his phone is off, and Lily is desperate. No Likes, no contact. She goes to his house, tries to break in and is caught. Lily is losing it. But eventually she tries to move on, actually tries to improve her life, to be a person without either Bob Trevino.

One day she opens FB and sees the post on his page regarding his death from the second heart attack. Lily drives to Indiana, with Daphne whom she is now acknowledging as a proper friend, for the funeral and meets Bob's wife. They embrace, Lily is gifted a scrapbook of her and Bob's entire online history together. Jeannie (Rachel Bay Jones, George & Mandy's First Marriage), Bob's wife, could have freaked out about this weird relationship he had with this messed up stranger, but she saw it all, and saw how it changed her husband. The scrapbook is her gift to him, and to Lily. Begin ugly crying.

The movie is not the sort of thing I normally watch, but it would have been during the heavy days of That Guy, when I was moved more by stories being told, by lives being capture, than by Big Drama and Amazing Situations. This is most definitely melodramatic sentimentality, with more than a little cringe, but its told heartfully. Its the expansion of a premise, and a vignette of a period in a person's life, which quite frankly, are what all movies are -- just moments in long lives. 

Unless you are watching a biopic or a historical drama over a longer period.