All throughout this project I’ve always been keenly aware that I’m a different kind of film critic who doesn’t always fit in with what might be considered ‘establishment critics’. At the end of every calendar year I get reminded of this because unlike all other film critics, real, imaginary, or in between, I do not compile a ‘best films of the year’ list. Because of how I approach films, there’s no reasonable way for me to do this and honestly I don’t see this as a problem that needs to be corrected. Still this journey has had an effect on me. As a result of all the work that I’ve put into this, I found myself doing things that I never thought I would ever do when I first started, and some of these give off an eerie vibe that they’re slowly dragging me deeper into the world of film culture. The first thing was that for the first time in my life I actually bought a movie DVD to own (and it was an out of market copy of a Disney film on top of that). Another outcome was that I started to see movies in a theater on a more regular basis. In 2015 alone I saw 6 films in a theater: Citizenfour, Force Majeure, Timbuktu, Wild Tales, About Elly, and The End of the Tour. If I had to rank all of these films in order of their quality, I don’t even know where to begin comparing such an odd assortment of films that cover nearly every continent on this globe (sorry Australia). This makes me wonder how anyone can watch hundreds of films a year and then whittle it down to the ten best without giving themselves a gigantic headache. In any case the next film in this series is:
What About Bob?
The cover has a similar feel to the Gremlins cover. The background is white, with the film's title in the bottom left hand corner. In order to be extra cute, the "O" in Bob is tilted at a 45 degree angle and is aligned to the top of the B's. To the right of the title are Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss shaking hands. Dreyfuss is dressed in business casual attire, while Murray is sporting a lame 1980s era t-shirt and shorts look. Murray’s hair has been cut in a way, that from the side perspective it almost looks like he has a Mohawk. Murray appears to be giving a cheerful greeting to a stoic Dreyfuss. The silhouettes above them however, which take up most of the cover, tell a different story as an enraged Dreyfuss has a hand clutched around Murray's neck. The text seen above the title provides some insight into this, "Bob's a special kind of friend. The kind that drives you crazy!" Well then, let's start the insanity.
The movie starts with a brightly colored goldfish swimming against a dark background during the credit sequence and in the opening shot this same goldfish is swimming in the tiny confined space of a fishbowl. In a much larger, but perhaps equally confined space, we see Bill Murray lying on a bed in his shabby New York City apartment, while he frantically rubs his head and continually talks to himself, repeating the same phrase over and over again “I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful”. Later Murray musters up enough energy to leave his apartment. He uses a tissue to handle all the doorknobs that he encounters and eventually makes his way outside to encounter the city’s loud, dusty, filthy ambience.
In contrast to the city’s low rent squalor, is the plush office of a successful psychiatrist Dr. Leo Marvin. We first see him in a moment of leisure as he talks on the phone with his wife, about his upcoming book deal and potential TV spot to help plug his work. During this conversation he is interrupted by a less prestigious doctor, who informs him that he’s closing up his practice and wants to transfer one of his patients to him, Bob Wiley. Dr. Marvin casually agrees, unaware of course of what he had signed up for, which is hinted at in the unadulterated delight of the lesser doctor. Bob Wiley turns out to be the bizarre, idiosyncratic man we saw in the opening.
Afraid of elevators Bob walks all the way up to the 44th floor to get to Dr. Marvin’s office. Their first session begins with Bob hopelessly trying to guess the names of Dr. Marvin’s family. When Bob sits down he then starts to delve into his problems providing a litany of ailments that inflict him when leaving his apartment. Dr. Marvin tries to get at the root of his fear, but Bob veers the conversation towards his ability to fake certain symptoms like Tourette’s syndrome. Bob also mentions his failed marriage, one where the chief argument was over the music of Neil Diamond. Through all of this Dr. Marvin is able to instill some hope in Bob. He then hawks his most recent book “Baby Steps” onto Bob suggesting to set small attainable goals for him to focus on. Whatever progress that is achieved though quickly becomes eradicated when Dr. Marvin mentions to Bob that he’ll be on vacation for an entire month and that Bob will have to wait until he gets back for his next session.
After Leo Marvin and his family arrive at their summer home in New Hampshire at Lake Winnipesaukee, Bob has a nervous breakdown and prods the phone exchange to put him through with Leo. After some further scamming of the people at the exchange, Bob gets the information he needs and then summons up the courage to get on a bus and ride it to Lake Winnipesaukee. Upon arrival, he gets spotted by Leo who desperately tries to get him back on a bus to New York. Leo arranges to call him at a coffee shop, but while Bob waits for the call and annoys all the locals he runs into the Guttmans, the couple who own the shop and who have an axe to grind with Leo Marvin. They see Bob as way to exact some revenge and decide to help him out.
The Guttmans drive Bob to Leo’s home, so that he can further infuriate him. Leo takes Bob for a walk and continues to implore him to go back to New York. An important moment though happens before this. Leo’s wife, Fay, grabs Bob’s fish and a symbolic anchor gets placed. The quick jump cut to Fay and Anna’s snickering foreshadows the growing conflict within the family. Leo eventually manages to convince Bob to take a vacation from his problems, however much to his chagrin Bob sees Lake Winnipesaukee as good a place as any to take such a respite. The Guttmans give him a place to spend the night and he arrives at the Marvins’ house the next day to greet them. During his stay in New Hampshire, he befriends Leo’s daughter Anna and winds up sailing with her friends. Later he meets Leo’s son Sigmund and successfully gets him to dive into the lake, something that Leo himself was unable to do. With this development Leo starts to see Bob as a threat to his happiness and well-being. Leo callously pushes him into the lake, when the family comes together to celebrate Sigmund’s achievement.
Leo’s family at this point starts to feel sympathetic towards Bob and warmly accept him as they would a family member. They invite him over for dinner and then later allow him to spend the night in their house, all of this at expense of Leo’s sanity. The following morning Bob overstays his welcome and ends up ruining Leo’s TV appearance designed to promote his book.
Having reached a breaking point, Leo attempts to dump Bob off at a local insane asylum, but the staff reject him, sending him back to Leo. Later that night when Bob shows up at Leo’s surprise birthday party and charms Leo’s sister Lily, Leo has a complete mental breakdown. After this the Marvins decide it might be best for Leo and Bob to spend some time apart and kindly boot Bob out of their house. Leo meanwhile escapes and ends up finding Bob. He takes Bob out into the forest and ties him to 20 pounds of explosives, hoping to kill him. Naturally this plan doesn’t work either, as Bob interprets this as a therapeutic exercise and is able to break free from his tethers. While Leo does a happy dance on the dock at the thought of his patient’s imminent demise, Bob sneaks past him into the house and brings out the birthday cake. The Marvins having left the house to search for Leo get back in time to watch their summer home get blown to smithereens. This drives Leo into a catatonic stupor, one that he emerges from just in time to see Bob marry his sister Lily, ending any hope whatsoever at getting him out of his life.
The centerpiece of the film is Bill Murray's performance as the titular character. Murray injects a great deal of spirit and manic energy into the role, even though it was mostly one-note and about as subtle as a hammer. However I'll add a caveat to this last point in that the one-note nature of his portrayal does work in giving credence to the madness of those who have the misfortunate of meeting him. Imagine if a pianist sat down in front of a piano and then proceeded to play the same note over and over again in a mindlessly repetitive manner. After a few minutes it would probably drive you nuts, and Murray's performance as Bob works in the exact same way. In every scene that Murray's in, he shows amazing consistency in his neurotic, compulsive, obnoxious, and needy behavior that it's easy to understand why Dr. Marvin and others would try to get rid of him. As Bob, Murray is truly exasperating to be around after a while and this can even drive the viewer a little nutty. One complaint that I do have about Murray's performance is that while he may induce a great deal of insanity from others, Bob himself really didn't seem all that crazy. Murray primarily plays Bob as an emotionally and intellectually stunted man-child, with no capability for maturity, and who spends his days acting like a petulant, spoiled brat. It's the type of character that Adam Sandler would later make a career out of playing, albeit with far less charisma than what Murray displays here.
A more interesting acting challenge falls to Richard Dreyfuss as Dr. Leo Marvin who I really liked in this role. Early on his character is played in a smug, self-centered manner. There’s a certain smarmy quality about Dreyfuss’s confident, cheerfully giddy laughter while talking on the phone in his opening scene. Dreyfuss exemplifies a character who is more capable of hiding his own inadequacies, which probably comes easier to him given the successes that he has in life; his career, the publication of his latest book, and his family. Dr. Marvin also comes off a bit too rational and cold to the touch as he is when trying to teach his son to dive. He treats this moment too much like a chore to complete in order to achieve his goal being a good father. Dreyfuss's manner gives off the idea that getting his son to dive is more about him, than it is about his son. Behind all of this is a man who's a bit obsessive in trying to make every aspect of his life perfect, so much so that he’ll spend time deciding how to pose for a photo, or he’ll practice his lines for his upcoming TV performance. In a sense Bob isn't so much a patient, but an embodiment of unmitigated chaos, a giant wrecking ball that could obliterate Leo’s perfect world. By establishing Dr. Marvin’s unrelenting obsessiveness Dreyfuss does a good job throughout the movie of showing that his character has some faults and neurosis of his own. Dr. Marvin's craziness though differs from Bob's in that it’s more of a crescendo towards a raging, bombastic climax. Dreyfuss adeptly handled this transition, and gave his character great depth in doing so.
Julie Hagerty gave a strong performance as Fay Marvin. On the surface Hagerty seems overly sweet and saccharine, a vibe that is practically inescapable with her pleasant smile and soft, dulcet toned voice, but Hagerty manages to give her character some real moxie as the conflict with her husband builds. Hagerty, like the other members of the family, have to achieve a believable affection for Bob, despite the fact that he annoys so many others that he runs across. And Hagerty succeeds in this by allowing her character to focus more on the positive sides to Bob's character, like his friendly, amiable nature, and his naive joy. She plays Fay as a more carefree spirit, someone who doesn't mind becoming totally overwhelmed by Bob's indefatigable energy. Fay's laughter during the one bedroom scene really came off like an honest, genuine reaction from this character and Hagerty deserves some credit for this.
The children also get to fall under Bob's spell, even though they have an easier task at making this seem believable. Charlie Korsmo as Sigmund seems too much like a grown-up in his performance as the sass-talking son. His preoccupation with death felt a little too forced and unnatural for a person of his age. Ironically this made him seem more mature and self-aware then his much older male co-stars. Kathryn Erbe as the daughter Anna, had a real good scene with Dreyfuss were she captures some excellent adolescent angst, but apart from this didn't have much of an impact.
The writing rather was rather bland and pedestrian. The dialogue had very little intellectual or dramatic heft to it, nor any intriguing subtext. It was also rather unimaginative and at times horribly repetitive. Murray’s early and often overuse of the phrase “Baby Steps” got annoying very quickly. However towards the end of the film the dialogue did improve and one of my favorite lines was Bob’s comment “…we’re like ropes on the Goodyear blimp”. I know it’s a stupid line, but it felt right coming from this character. The writing didn’t really make much of an effort to use Bob’s status as a weirdo to come up with more quirky, humorous lines like this and since the film clearly aims to be a comedy, this was a lost opportunity. Granted I still think that the film was funny. Bob’s remark that he was walking proof of the success of Leo’s methods was probably the funniest line in the film and Dreyfuss’s reaction to this was hilarious. In fact another really strong aspect of Dreyfuss’s performance was his body language, and the way in which he reacts during the TV shoot really made that sequence a lot funnier. Some of the better moments in the film came in the silent exchanges between the two main characters.
While the lines of dialogue had some highlights, the story that surrounds them is rather halfheartedly constructed, and extremely predictable. The setup is really obvious with Dr. Fensterwald giving us a hint to how crazy Bob might be; a reputation that Murray lives up to. Also in the premise that Dr. Marvin had planned a vacation, one can easily see that this is destined to become a disaster. Bob's flimsy ruse in order to get his address was a weak plot point, and once he gets to New Hampshire, the forward motion comes to a screeching halt with Bob merely in town to create some plot less havoc. The narrative had no real direction and also lacked any suspense. The fact that Dr. Marvin’s attempts to get rid of Bob failed should surprise no one. The only intrigue that could be found was in how the story would end, since it was obvious that Bob could not be defeated. Combined with the comical dialogue and musical score that features breezy classical pieces with jazz-techno chimes, the tone of the film was that of a light farce. And it's a farce that pays homage to Murphy's Law, making everything that could possible go wrong with Dr. Marvin's vacation a reality. However within this concept, the pacing and build-up towards the cataclysmic ending was well crafted.
The cinematography was really good. It utilized longer, more fluid takes with excellent camera movement. One really strong scene that I liked was the fast and impactful zoom in on Leo, once he realized that Bob had followed him all the way to New Hampshire. This movement really enhances the suddenness in the actor’s reaction. The framing was good and the film grabbed some really nice close-ups of Dreyfuss during his character’s descent into madness. There’s a shot of Leo as he approaches the kitchen following his choking episode, then later there’s an even better shot of him on the porch as he desperately hopes for the rain to let up. The framing also provided some support for the storytelling. In one of the film’s early scenes one sees a tight hallway shot of Bob which establishes the character’s sense of discomfort, and hemmed in feeling. This really offers a nice contrast with the more wide-open vacation house setting where the film spends most of its time. The shots were also picturesque, one of few shots that caught my attention was the one where both Leo is trying to teach Sigmund to dive, and the film casts both of them against nothing but blue sky behind them to fill up the background.
The film was far more thematically rich than I had anticipated, and the main theme gets built straight from the question posed in the film's title, "What About Bob?". The movie may place Bob Wiley in the center of the story, but it's really not about him or his illness, but rather about how others choose to view him. It's a film about craziness that focuses not on personal identity, but rather on societal perception. Dr. Marvin views Bob, strictly within the confines of his profession, as a patient, a man who is ill, diseased, in need of therapy or medication, or perhaps even as a deviant whose behavior needs to be modified to become more acceptable and civilized. His family though, detached from the tenets of psychiatry, are able to see Bob in a much different light and as a result probably see him much more as a human being. They see a man who may be a bit weird, but whose eccentricities they can feel comfortable living with. They are willing to accept Bob as he is and they don't stigmatize him in any way for his behavior. And I suppose the film is a bit too cheerfully idealistic in that Bob truly doesn't pose any real threat, accentuating a benign, harmless side to mental disorders, but the family are clearly so much happier with him around that it makes any danger that they risked worth it. The fact that the last half of the film had no discernible plot might have also played into a secondary theme. Bob offered a way for the family to get out of the detailed-orientated, rigidly planned rut that their lives had become under Leo's guidance. With Bob, they were more comfortable living life as it is, and felt free to enjoy the wonders that a little spontaneity or (dare I say) randomness could offer. Bob may be crazy, but it just may be the brand of crazy that some people seek to find.
Movie Comparison. Psychiatrists don't have it particularly easy either in the 1988 film The Couch Trip. Here Charles Grodin plays a Los Angeles based radio shrink who has already been driven mad by his patients. With the assistance of his handlers, he escapes to London for a sabbatical and plots to hire some stooge as a replacement for his radio show. The stooge that gets picked has the thankless job of working in a mental hospital in Illinois and who tries to transfer away a particularly troublesome patient played by Dan Aykroyd. Aykroyd's character intercepts the phone call where the replacement offer is made and manages to escape the ward and fly to LA to take the job himself. His natural charisma allows him to really connect with the callers and the show becomes such a huge hit that the producers consider making his position more permanent. The doctor that he replaces and the one that he pretends to be eventually find out what's going on and both make desperate attempts to get some revenge. The film also adds another wacko with a character played by Walter Matthau who helps Aykroyd's character get caught.
The acting wasn't quite as good, but in The Couch Trip I enjoyed the performances from the patients far more than the doctors. Aykroyd does a better job of finding that balance between being crazy and being sane, giving his character some real sharp, razor wit. Matthau was also good at straddling this line and is the only character smart enough to realize that Aykroyd is a fraud. The Couch Trip is a funnier film and most of the comedy comes from these two performances. The film though does suffer from the performances of Charles Grodin and David Clennon, both of whom were awful, playing horribly ineffectual caricatures of medical professionals. In the last half of the film it was these two characters who sounded like a broken record with Grodin's constant bickering over his $200,000 and Clennon's lame, unconvincing declaration that he was the real doctor who should have taken over the show. The supporting cast is largely forgettable, apart from maybe Donna Dixon, in the role of the sympathetic colleague. The cinematography is completely artless and drab when compared to What About Bob?. The writing however was much stronger, which found time for some slight social commentary about the American health care system as well as the wealthy elite class in Beverly Hills. The film also had a more interesting, intriguing story, even though the ending was extremely contrived. An interesting aspect that I found in both films however was the notion of the sane doctor driven to utter lunacy by their own patients, as if craziness was a contagious disease capable of spreading to those who let themselves be exposed to it. And in both films the doctors are ill-equipped to handle this infection. The only person who seems immune to this transfer is Aykroyd's character, partly because he's already "one of their own". In a sense, perhaps nothing can drive you crazy if you're already there.