What About Bob?

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Screening Suggestions

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I haven't seen this one in a while, but upon this viewing, I kind of got stuck in wondering if it was "appropriate" for this day and age considering several things within it. Just one example is the idea of Bill Murray being a complete stranger and sharing a room with your pre-adolescent son. It's an example of a movie that certainly has a good idea, but one could almost quite honestly see this as a horror movie these days. More on that later.

The film introduces us to multi-phobic Bob Wiley (Murray). He's a friendly man, albeit a little strange, and has been in and out of therapy for years. This is despite his big fear of leaving his apartment and going out into the world. His current therapist, tired of dealing with him, sends him to Dr. Leo Marvin (Richard Dreyfuss); a man with a big ego about his new book 'Baby Steps' who's just about to head on summer vacation for a month with his family. Upon their first meeting, Bob decides Marvin is the one who can help him, but his leaving puts a wrench in Bob's works. And this is sort of where things get creepy.

Eventually, Bob goes through a sort of maximum effort to track Dr. Marvin down to his summer home in Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire. Marvin doesn't take it too well, but well enough that he manages to "help" Bob by telling him to "take a vacation from his problems" whenever they come up. Bob takes it a little too literally and ends up taking a vacation by spending his time getting to know Dr. Marvin's family; wife, Fay (Julie Hagerty); daughter, Anna (Kathryn Erbe); and son, Siggy (Charlie Korsmo). The family finds Bob charming and fun, but all he really ends up being to Leo is a pain in the ass.

As the film goes on, Bob befriends the family in different ways, finding out that he's not necessarily alone with all of his phobias amid various other problems. It's a pretty good way to see the mental health perspective. Some are worse off than others, but I believe it's true that everyone has something they have to deal with, and it's important for those who suffer from mental health problems to know they aren't alone. So there is a level of relatability to this between a mental health patient and the family of a therapist. In the meantime, the patient gets under the skin of the therapist so much, that it even goes so far as to have us question "who's the one with the mental health problem, really?" (not to spoil too much).

Now, as sweet as it all sounds, the truth of the matter is that this still does have a sort of horrific idea looming underneath it all. Imagine you're a therapist and one of your patients tracks you and your family down while you're on vacation because he thinks his problems have gotten out of hand. Your family's first impressions of him are positive, but the truth of the matter is, that this man's a complete stranger. You then see him hanging out with your family members alone, including your wife, your pre-adolescent son, and your teenage daughter. Remember, you just met this guy, you know he has massive problems, he tracked you down because of them...

As far as I'm concerned, Dr. Leo Marvin falls under that category of "antagonists" who were right the whole time. Every bit of his behaviour in this is justified - except maybe being insanely hung up on his son learning how to dive (although it's explained why, it's still kind of strange). Much like viewing 'Ferris Bueller' as though it's Cameron's story, this is also fun to watch again, not so much as the comedy it is, but a psychological thriller of a home invasion movie. Don't believe me? Honestly, check it out. At first, I was gonna put this under Screening Suggestions because I remember loving it when I was a kid... but now I just want people to see it through a different lens.

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