Lily is heartbroken; she leaves unreturned voice messages for her dad and even searches for him on social media. She finds a Bob Trevino on Facebook who has no profile picture and sends him a friend request, just in case. It turns out not to be her father but another man with the same name (John Leguizamo). Like the saying in Casablanca, it’s the beginning of a beautiful friendship, and he starts to like all of her social media posts while giving her the emotional support she desperately needs.
Lily is a caretaker for a disabled woman named Daphne (Lauren ‘Lolo’ Spencer), and one day she finds her calling for help in the bathroom in a puddle of water due to a toilet issue. Lily calls up her new friend Bob, whom she tells Daphne is her father, and he comes and fixes the problem like the good friend that he is. Bob learns that Lily doesn’t even have or know about a plunger, so he takes her to a hardware store to buy her tools and necessities.
“…the purity that Leguizamo gives off is so strong that it’s a career-defining role.”
I love that he gives her both the physical and emotional tools that she needs in life, and all out of the kindness of his heart. This Bob is already married (to a scrapbooking-obsessed woman named Jeanie, played by Rachel Bay Jones), and there’s nothing romantic going on between the older man and younger woman. It’s pure and innocent, just like Lily the character is (besides being so broken).
There really needs to be more stories told like Bob Trevino Likes It, about the good that people can do in the world for strangers. It’s heartwarming and eventually heartbreaking with where the story goes, but the purity that Leguizamo gives off is so strong that it’s a career-defining role (in a lifetime of memorable performances). Kudos to Tracie Laymon for bringing it all together to make a modern classic.
Huey Lewis once famously sang about the power of love, but this film shows it. You don’t need to be family or in love with someone to show the type of kindness that can be life-altering. It’s a supremely powerful message that could not possibly be more vital to the times than now.
"…You don’t need to be family or in love with someone to show the type of kindness that can be life-altering. It’s a supremely powerful message that could not possibly be more vital to the times than now."
