Now and then, you find yourself at a movie that really creeps up on you. You’re sitting in a dark theater with your fellow audience members, thinking you’re in for another scrappy indie when “bam!” you’re choking on your own sobs, trying not to make that “screech breath” sound.

You know the one I mean. When you try to hold back the tears for so long that you wind up creating a cavernous echo in your lungs, a cross between a hawk’s battle cry and a mare’s neigh of approval? You may find yourself battling back something like when watching Bob Trevino Likes It, a dynamite dramedy/tearjerker that begins with a Facebook friend request and ends with the redefinition of what it means to be a family.

After years of acting as a caregiver to people who should have been taking care of her, 25-year-old Lily Trevino (Barbie Ferreira, Nope) is barely scraping by with her emotionally. Her mother abandoned the family when she was a child, and her father, Robert (French Stewart, Queen Bees), is a ghastly deadbeat, a penny-pinching schemer who haggles over expired coupons at restaurants and uses his adult daughter as a wingman in his desperate dating fobiles.

When Robert decides to cut off all contact with Lily and ignores her repeated pleas for forgiveness, she does what many of us have done in moments of desperation: she searches for him on Facebook. Instead of finding her biological father Robert Trevino, she connects with a Bob Trevino (John Leguizamo, The Menu), a construction manager from a neighboring town who begins to interact with her through the online platform.

Reacting to her photos and posts like the father she has never had, Bob’s simple act of being there for Lily opens new doors for both, even though the childless man is still grieving a personal tragedy of his own. What follows is a relationship that builds slowly and authentically into something the two of them sorely need and neither of them ever expected. And that it’s done without any high-concept twist or smarmy turn a less emotionally in-touch screenplay would have fallen back on, makes it even more special.

Inspired by a real-life experience from writer/director Tracie Laymon, Bob Trevino Likes It has a level of honesty that can’t be faked. We’ve seen quirky indies about two souls scarred by life that find new paths to healing together, but Laymon’s film is more interested in the raw and occasionally brutal truths of loneliness and the fragility of connection in an increasingly disconnected world.

This off-the-cuff honesty creates an experience that is disarmingly funny, unexpectedly gutting, and one that refuses to hit you over the head with its sentimentality. And it all works because of the spirit that is ingrained in every scene, starting with Ferreira’s performance.

Avoiding any melodrama, Ferreira doesn’t plead for the audience’s sympathy; she earns it by consistently exposing her vulnerability, which is evident from the first shot. Every impulsive choice Lily makes, each self-effacing joke she tells, and every overblown emotional reaction feels true and perfectly pitched. There’s a tragic backstory here, but it’s not used as mere adornment; rather, it serves to flesh out Ferreira’s performance as a young woman who has been starved for emotional connection and doesn’t quite know how to ask for what she needs.

That’s where the Leguizamo factor comes in, shaking something loose in the actor we haven’t seen in a while. For a respected star who has been in the film and TV business for so long, also balancing a successful solo career on stage, this role might be his most accomplished to date. A good man by nature, Bob has learned to live with his pain by compartmentalizing it until Lily shows up and awakens a part of his heart he thought would be dormant forever. His life with wife Jeanie (a sublime Rachel Bay Jones, Ben Is Back) is a delicate dance around a subject neither wants to face head-on; he deals with it his way, and she has found a creative outlet— scrapbooking —to express her feelings, which brings her joy.

As Lily’s actual father, Stewart plays it bold, broad, and borderline outrageously monstrous. The first time I saw the film, the performance rubbed me the wrong way, I suppose as intended, and I didn’t see how well it worked then because it was so unbalanced in the right(wrong) ways. The emotional neglect from a man so warped by his selfishness is ghoulish to witness. Bolstered by a cartoonish accent and a swagger that teeters on caricature before settling into genuine cruelty, Stewart creates a kind of whiplash of toxic masculinity in father form that makes you appropriately recoil whenever he is onscreen.

By design, the film is unflashy, and cinematographer John Rosario captures the small-town essence of Kentucky with visuals that mirror the characters’ inner lives. Small homes and dimly lit diners have a personality of their own. Even a “smash palace” that wheelchair-bound Daphne (a buoyant Lauren “Lolo” Spencer whom I’d have liked to have one or two more scenes with), the upbeat woman Lily is a home aid worker for, brings her to so that Lily can blow off some steam, gives off an authentic vibe.

What sets Bob Trevino Likes It apart from your run-of-the-mill tearjerker is its low-key radicalness. There have been numerous stories about chosen families, but few have been delivered without fanfare. Taking the trauma out of emotional abandonment and refusing to resolve it with reconciliation or excuse it with forgiveness it instead offers something more satisfying: the opportunity to be made whole through unexpected bonds. There’s no moral being forced down our throats. Just Laymon asking a straightforward question, “What if you stopped waiting around for someone to come back and paid attention to who is already here?”

Since premiering at the 2024 South by Southwest Film & TV Festival, where it won both the Narrative Feature Grand Jury Award and the Audience Award, the film has garnered a multitude of accolades, including recognition from the Minnesota Film Critics Association at the Twin Cities Film Festival this past October. In a perfect world, the performances from Ferreira and Leguizamo (especially Leguizamo’s) would linger long in the voters’ consciousness and help the film stay in the mix. However, perhaps Bob Trevino Like It‘s clear-eyed exploration of human connection works better as a therapeutic salve for your cinematic soul. In a world that often leaves us feeling lonely, finding a movie overflowing with such abundant compassion is a quiet miracle — and that is the best prize a movie could hope for.