Summary Of The Film 'What About Bob'

In the movie “What About Bob,” Bob is a patient under a psychiatrist named Dr. Leo Marvin. The Psychiatrist took on Bob after Bob’s previous therapist dropped him and canceled his practice, so Dr. Marvin being a very arrogant and egotistical doctor thinks this will be an easy task. Later on Dr. Marvin goes on to vacation and unbeknownst to him, Bob follows him to his vacation home, since he needed some extra therapy. This causes some dysfunction become Marvin doesn’t see patients on vacations and doesn’t want to deal with Bob’s antics. Also frustrating is Bob becomes friends with the family, as the movie goes on Bob shows that he is very sociable but with some quirks. Bob teaches Dr. Marvin’s children, who have some of their own internal problems,
how to resolve them. Towards the end Bob wins over the family and continues to upset Marvin causing Marvin to have multiple mental breakdowns. In this movie it showed someone (Bob) dealing with a few psychological disorders. The main disorders portrayed were obsessive personality disorder and agoraphobia. I thought the movie did a good job showing how a person might deal with these issues and the internal struggle. For example, Bob has a very troubling time leaving his apartment and fears his heart will stop beating or the obsessive fear of not being able to find a bathroom if he has to leave. Also, he brings with him napkins so he doesn’t have to touch anything and walks down the hallway sideways avoiding all contact. When Bob gets nervous you hear him chanting, “I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful.” I think this film did a great job depicting the symptoms of these psychological disorders and brought a better understanding of how simple tasks that people who don’t deal with struggles with mental health. I think where the movie struggled was obviously the portrayal of the psychologist who was not very warm to his patient and consistently got upset with him. Also, in the movie Bob ended up recovering from his symptoms without any noticeable treatment from his psychologist. Yet, one could argue him being out with the Doctor’s family and dealing with the kids and wife helped with his healing. This was a humorous approach at a serious issue but the film did a good job depicting the stress that can arrive when struggling with mental health and Bob was a good example of what someone could look like when suffering from mental health.