Review: ‘What About Bob?’ Is a Harshly Overlooked ’90s Comedy
Frank Oz strikes comedy gold (again) with his largely forgotten film
In a moment of cruel irony, I chose to watch What About Bob? to get out of my own head for a little while on a particularly anxious day when going outside seemed like a chore (or, perhaps, a death threat). Of course, I didn’t read its premise. No. Seeing Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss together in a film I knew was directed by the great Frank Oz was enough to guarantee my interest without anything else being necessary, so I went in blind.
Within a literal couple of minutes, I realised that the film featured Bill Murray as someone absolutely crippled by anxiety, particularly by agoraphobia (the fear of going outside) and by a fear of germs that leads him to touch almost everything with a tissue over his hand. While Oz directs Murray in ways that find the comedic side to everything, I was actually taken aback by how much Murray’s manic state reflected many of mine over the last 6–7 years of struggling with anxiety. Bigging himself up to go outside, he is breathless and panicky and sticks to himself for fear of his various coping mechanisms impacting others. Going outside, for Bill Murray’s titular Bob, is Hell itself, and this is captured really well in the first 15 minutes of the film especially, but…
