What About Bob and Groundhog Day both Funny yet Creepy and Melancholy
Did anyone else find the movies Groundhog Day and What About Bob to be a little bit creepy and melancholy?
On the surface, Groundhog day is just this light Bill Murray comedy with an unusual magic-realism element. But it's impossible not to view the day-repeating element as a metaphor for the average human life, monotonously repeating the same daily events over and over again surrounded by the same people. And with the death element included in the movie (Murray repeatedly dying) you can't help but feel like this extends the message of the metaphor to be, you repeat the same monotonous day over and over again around the same people in life and then you die.
As well as monotony and mortality, there seems to also be an image of this life being inconsequential and insignificant. No matter what Murray tries, good or bad, he fails to make a change in the people or world around him. It's as if him and everyone else in this town lives in their own little bubble, caring only about someone else when they either help or inconvenience them. In an attempt to take control, Murray does whatever he can to change himself, he lies, deceives, even practices for years to become a master pianist. But it's all futile. He can't truly change his own nature, and he can't change the nature of the world around him. He's stuck in it and there's nothing he can do, as if it's all predetermined, like being a cog in a clockwork.
I happened to see the movie for the first time back-to-back with What About Bob, another Bill Murray film from around the same time which also happens to have a creepy surreal melancholy vibe to it. Where Groundhog Day is a metaphor for the monotony and inconsequential nature of life, What About Bob is an exploration of the layered nature of mental illness, and the effects mental illness can have on those around it.
In this film Murray plays a man we see is crippled with anxiety, unable to leave the house and live a functional life. Through the help of his therapist, played by Richard Dreyfuss, Murray is able to improve greatly and overcome his anxieties. Soon after, Dreyfuss is shocked and perturbed to find his patient popping up in his life and befriending his family. He is rightfully disturbed by this breach of their doctor-patient relationship and can now see that Murray has an obsessive and anti-social personality. But Dreyfuss's wife and family can't see this, they are taken by Murray's charm. Slowly the formerly healthy functional sane doctor descends into madness and destruction.
What About Bob shows a side of mental illness rarely seen on film. That a person with an anti-social personality isn't always creepy and weird, sometimes they can be very charming and likeable. The nature of their mental illness can be undetectable to those around them, yet their anti-social nature can still cause destruction; even to the point where their behavior can cause a formerly functional mentally-healthy person in their life to devolve into madness.
It's interesting that both of these Bill Murray movies came out so close to each other. They're both funny and have the veneer of a silly light-hearted farce, but also both have a definite creepy and melancholy vibe. Together they create what I call the Funny-but-Creepy Bill Murray Double Feature.