Number 19

“What About Bob?” (1991, Directed by Frank Oz)

Although my aim in this list is always to represent the films that have most impacted me thus far in my life, I can’t deny that there’s a certain added bonus when I get to stand behind a movie I feel is underrated. “What About Bob?” is a comedy so blisteringly funny, and so adroitly composed, that its rapid fade into obscurity remains a mystery to me to this day. It deserves to be remembered as one of Bill Murray’s crowning achievements, and it also proves once and for all that Richard Dreyfuss is in possession of considerable comedic talents which are criminally underused. The director, Frank Oz, is not a man whose work impresses me very much; his strongest talent may be the ability to get the hell out of the way and let his performers work. But for this picture, his invisible technique is exactly right, and his admittedly solid understanding of composition and timing buttress the zanier elements of the film, keeping everything level. The movie goes off like a Swiss watch, clicking into place flawlessly without a forced beat or a stretched plot point. And it’s funny. Oh brother, is it funny.

You think he’s gone? He’s not gone. That’s the whole point: he’s never gone!

The story centers around Bob Wiley (Bill Murray), a lovable puppy dog of a man who is crippled by neuroses which make him extremely agoraphobic and paranoid. He is the textbook definition of “harmless,” but seems incapable of functioning normally in his life as a single man living in the city. Desperate for help, he turns to a psychiatrist named Leo Marvin (Richard Dreyfuss), whose career is taking off thanks to his new bestseller “Baby Steps.” Marvin meets with Wiley and diagnoses him (quite accurately) as needing family connections, but he’s distracted by his career and an impending vacation with his wife and two children, and doesn’t give Bob much thought. This proves to be a mistake, because Bob soon appears at the family’s lake house, earnestly seeking more guidance for his life and quietly ingratiating himself into Leo’s world.

The first thing to marvel at about this movie is the script. Even though Bill Murray allegedly improvised so much of his dialogue that an accurate screenplay could never really be written, the structure of the movie is still the product of obvious care and consideration. There is a delicate tight rope being walked between all three major characters: Bob, Leo, and Leo’s family. All three of them want different things, all of them must contend with one another to get them, and yet they must all remain intensely sympathetic to the audience. Bob in particular is a tricky subject: after all, he is in no small way stalking his psychiatrist, and yet he must never read as creepy or potentially dangerous. He must be persistent enough to warrant an interesting story, but innocent enough for the audience to like him. Leo Marvin is harder still: his hatred of Bob escalates to almost Biblical proportions, he is obviously a seriously flawed family man, and nothing about his psychiatry is particularly impressive. This is a man with almost no cards in his favor for sympathy, and yet if we cannot understand and appreciate why Bob is driving him so insane, the movie doesn’t mean anything. The script wins a victory here by sidestepping plays for sympathy and relying on fleshing Leo out as fully as possible: he is a three dimensional person with hopes, fears, and values that are clearly related to us. He’s ambitious, yes, and sometimes it gets the better of him, but he does not intend to neglect or marginalize his family. We see that he spends a great deal of time with them, and we see that they matter to him more than anything, but he is (quite ironically) not gifted at communicating with them. These are subtle character beats revealed in the tiniest wrinkles of plot and dialogue, and “What About Bob?” nails them. Leo is the hardest kind of character to sell, because he is the most realistic: he’s not a saint, but he’s not a bad man either—he’s just a person with flaws.

Already you can begin to understand the complexity of the story that is evolving. For the movie to work, the audience must watch every scene from multiple distinct perspectives and sympathize immediately with both. There are three discrete narratives packed into each scene of the script: Bob’s wonderful vacation, Leo’s “Cape Fear” style nightmare, and the Marvin family’s amused encounters with an eccentric new friend. As each conflict happens, all three movies play out in real time, and we the audience constantly jump from one to the next. The reason “What About Bob?” is so incredibly funny is that we can never settle on which interpretation is actually “right.” They are all right. This may be the fundamental truth about life that the movie is dedicated to: everything is interpretation.

Dooooccttooorrr Leeeeooooooo Maaarrrvvviinnnn

All of this would be nothing without great acting, but “Bob” has that in spades. Murray gives, to me, his best comedic performance bar none. I know choices like “Caddyshack” and “Ghostbusters” are more popular, but my heart will always belong to Bob Wiley. Dreyfuss is an astonishing physical and verbal comedian; he begins the movie getting laughs from the tiniest gestures, and by the end he is raving madman on par with any I’ve seen. Very, very few actors could have handled such a wide breadth of comedic performance, but Dreyfuss is on fire from start to finish. It’s sad that his job is a little thankless, but everyone who really loves this movie can quote Leo’s lines just as fast as Bob’s. Need proof? Watch the clip below, and wait for the 00:23 mark.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5ZSyAuNMCM&feature=related (At 00:45, watch Bob quietly cycle through names for Leo, trying to find the one that doesn’t anger him)

The nice thing about a comedy is that its success is more easily measurable: if you laughed, it probably did its job. The trade-off is, however, that once the punch line has been revealed, return trips to the well often deliver diminishing returns. Not so here. The film hits some bizarre magic mark of immediately funny and yet even funnier on repeat viewings. The jokes seem pretty standard on the first spin, but somehow they just hit with more impact every time you see them again. I don’t know exactly how that’s accomplished; maybe it only happens when the comedy comes from deeply felt characters, whom we can relate to over and over. Or maybe some jokes are just so well-built that they last. Whatever the case, “What About Bob” is a comedic titan, avoiding all the pratfalls of lesser entries in the genre: gross out gags, sagging second acts, bizarrely serious climaxes, zany supporting characters that mess up the tone, etc. This is a precision engineered piece of entertainment, written and directed by people who know how to make comedy work. The craftsmanship of this film is designed to highlight the story and downplay the egos of the people making it. I find that kind of film rarer and rarer these days.

There’s a deeply buried psychosis to the film, and I must admit I find it fascinating. At its core, it’s a deeply tragic story about a man who is punished excessively by the Fates for his sins. Leo does not want for love of his family, he does not abuse or neglect them in any way, but he struggles with selfishness and seems limited in his capacity to accept them for who they are. Along comes Bob, who literally thrives on being part of a family, and soon poor Dr. Marvin is on the outside looking in, as if he doesn’t even belong in his own home. The movie never explicitly says so, but the real reason Leo grows to hate Bob so much isn’t just the annoyance: it’s the fact that Bob’s unselfish, giving nature is a painful reminder of everything he is not. The sting of seeing his family revitalized by this man is certainly disproportionate punishment for Leo’s crimes, but life is unfair. On some level, we could expect Leo to try and learn from Bob, but who among us would really do any better?

We can’t be expected to understand him, he is so far above us. We’re like ropes on the Goodyear blimp.

Human beings are deeply territorial by nature, we are naturally designed for monogamy and we jealously defend the people we lay claim to. Dr. Marvin has made a career from intellectualizing human emotions, breaking them down into little pieces and controlling them logically, but those skills are useless here. What Bob presents him with is an obstacle he is not trained for: a primal attack on his territory. It doesn’t matter whether or not Bob intends to take Leo’s family (most likely not, but we get hints that he is not blind to what’s going on), because if events are not altered that is simply what will happen. Countering this requires Leo to call upon his deeper, more primal passions, but this is a man not comfortable enough with himself to do so. Indeed, that disconnection from his baser instincts may be what holds back a more passionate relationship with his wife and family, or what restrains him from giving more freely of himself to others. Bob, meanwhile, is a lustful man by nature; he avoids logic almost entirely, using emotion as the rudder of his ship. He does not categorize who he is to this family, or give a name to what he wants from anyone, he is simply compelled forward by the force of his desires. He wants love, he wants companionship, and he seeks it honestly and openly. Leo’s attempts to prevent this intruder from taking his family are all pitiful, calling on the borders of society to hold his opponent back. When those fail, as they always eventually will, Leo reaches within himself and realizes how broken and crooked the mechanisms of communication with his deeper self are. The discovery rocks him to his core, and sends him over the edge.

I know it’s bizarre to say this, but “Bob” is a spiritual sibling with another film of a very different genre: Scorsese’s “Cape Fear.” Although I would argue this is the superior film of the two, both are masterful examinations of how modern society has made men docile, uncomfortable with our own selves, and crippled from calling on our primal resources to respond to threats on what is precious to us. Our relative safety becomes a curse, a handicap that mutes the passions we need to contend with the uncertainty of life. “What About Bob” milks this for comedy, “Cape Fear” uses it for suspense, and both work completely naturally.

If there’s a lesson that I take away from “What About Bob,” it’s that you must hold onto what matters to you, and hold it yourself. Society has laws and rules of conduct which are fine, but there will always be a mild element of arbitrariness to them, and they will never really be able to protect you from the most basic parts of human nature. Leo is not in regular contact with the deepest wells of his emotions, so he cannot manage them, and they produce childish violence and rage. Bob, a wreck on the outside, is nonetheless a master of primal urges, and his comfort with them makes him Leo’s ultimate nemesis. At the end of the day, for all our sophistication and culture, we cannot leave behind our instinct, and instinct is never more important than in relationships. People want to feel a connection with one another that transcends societal boundaries. If we are to do this, we must make peace with the deeper and more mysterious parts of who we are, and we must reveal those dark corners to one another. Leo Marvin was a man who tried to hide from himself. Bob Wiley was God’s reply.