What About Bob (1991)
We jump some fourteen years now. After some problems with drugs in the early eighties, Dreyfuss would have a career resurgence starting in 1986 with Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Tin Men and Stakeout, as he moved towards more comedic roles.
His most outwardly comic role was one of his best, as uptight psychiatrist Dr. Leo Marvin. Leo is about to take a month’s vacation when Bill Murray’s Bob appears at his office. Bob has a fear of, well, everything, and a half hour session isn’t going to cut it. Leo hands Bob a copy of his book, Baby Steps, and makes his way to his holiday home. Bob turns up, however, and as Bob gets in with Leo’s family, the seemingly calm and unflappable demeanour of Leo starts to fray.
Dreyfuss shows fantastic comedy timing, as Leo begins a quick descent into a very different kind of madness than in his role in Close Encounters. Dreyfuss’s cranky, angry Leo is the type of part he’s probably remembered for now, and he paints an enduring portrait of man pushed to the brink of insanity, finally snapping as events in the film enter ridiculous territory. A hilarious film, which Bill Murray is probably credited most for, but it is Dreyfuss as the straight man that holds the film together.
