Tracie Laymon, director of Bob Trevino Likes It: ‘Sometimes we find our family in the most unexpected places’

• The protagonists, Barbie Ferreira (Euphoria) and John Leguizamo (Moulin Rouge, John Wick), share an unusual chemistry in this story about people who want to help others, a film competing for the Golden Spike

Valladolid, 21 October 2024. As part of the 69th edition of the Valladolid International Film Festival (SEMINCI), Tracie Laymon, a leading figure in American indie cinema, has presented the Spanish premiere of her debut feature Bob Trevino Likes It in competition. The filmmaker, with a career as a screenwriter (Goodnight Burbank, Girls! Girls! Girls!), producer and short filmmaker, has chosen to bring to the screen her own experience as an insecure twenty-something girl abandoned by her father. The result is an optimistic film about people who want to help others, a work that encourages the restoration of faith in humanity.

Laymon has shared with the audience what it was like to bring such a personal aspect of her life as her tumultuous relationship with her father to film: ‘It wasn’t easy. I wanted to be honest with the situation, for my father not to be just a caricature. He is a human being and I wanted to show his vulnerabilities as well as his limitations. Hurt people hurt and my father inherited a lot of darkness from his father as well’.

In Bob Trevino Likes It, Lily decides to look for her father on Facebook and finds a profile with the same name that starts liking her photos and comments. She unexpectedly meets Bob Trevino, a man who has recently lost his son and with whom she strikes up a very special friendship. That part of the story is also inspired by the director’s real experiences: ‘I wanted to tell the story of this father I found on Facebook, to share the gift he gave me,’ she said. She added: ‘It’s a film about the family we choose, about how sometimes we find our family in the most unexpected places.

Film as therapy

Laymon has emphasised the therapeutic aspect of the filmmaking process: ‘You write about what you know, about what you’ve lived through. About ten years ago I was directing another project and there was a situation that made me so angry that I couldn’t talk. That’s when I knew I had to deal with a lot of things. In my family when someone got angry it was something that caused a lot of pain and I knew I had to learn how to get angry in a healthy way’.

Lily, her on-screen alter ego, is played by Barbie Ferreira, a choice the director was clear about from the beginning of the project. ‘I had seen Barbie in Euphoria and in a film called Unpregnant. In the former I could see her enormous vulnerability, while the latter showed me her wit and ability to see the world with fresh eyes, almost like a child. I always knew she was the one to play Lily Trevino. I said to Barbie, ‘This is your film’ and she agreed,’ she said.

According to the director, with the cast, which includes Ferreira, French Stewart, who plays her father, and John Leguizamo, who plays Bob Trevino, she was able to build an atmosphere of trust from very early on: ‘We exchanged stories of our personal and family past. We realised that there is no shortage of narcissistic fathers in the world,’ she noted. And she added: ‘I wasn’t just casting actors, it was a casting of hearts. There was a lot of love between the cast and crew, we all supported each other.

We are not alone

Another aspect of Bob Trevino Likes It that Tracie Laymon has highlighted is its positive portrayal of social media, something that is increasingly difficult to find in today’s productions. ‘I think it’s one of the few films that shows social media as a positive thing. When you watch it, you’re waiting for something horrible to happen, and I liked the idea of going the other way. For me, that’s where the healing was. I wanted to make this film to thank this person who was kind to me without knowing that he was changing my life. It’s a decision we make every day when we surf the net. We can leave negative comments without knowing who is receiving them and how they affect them or we can redirect that energy into something positive. Kindness is very undervalued, and we need to bring that back.

Something that, as she herself points out, has become particularly relevant after the experience we went through as a society with the 2020 pandemic. ‘We experienced a very strong isolation in the pandemic and we came out of it with the need to reconnect with each other. I wanted to show that we are not alone. The internet was initially created for the purpose of bringing humanity closer together. We can still use it for that.

In the words of its director, Bob Trevino Likes It is ‘a film about good people, about people who want to help others’, a work that encourages the restoration of faith in humanity.

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