Bob (Bill Murray) is a lovable, narcissistic, neurotic whose neediness intrudes on the family vacation of his therapist, Dr. Leo Marvin (Richard Dreyfuss). Other people seem to get along with Bob, but Dr. Marvin finds Bob to be a distraction and an annoyance to his usually well-organized life.The entire cast is wonderful. And Julie Hagerty, who plays Leo's wife Fay, is perfect as the soft-spoken spouse who only sees the good in Bob.The script is very well written. It offers moments of hilarity and moments that touch the heart. It also does a great job of balancing the emotional paths of Bob and Leo throughout the film.This film and "Groundhog Day" make Murray one of the best comedic actors of his time.

As big of a fan of Dreyfus as I am, his character in this film bugged me. He seemed seriously unlikable! From the look on his face when Leo first meets Bob, you can just tell Leo is looking down his nose. Leo seemed pretty cool with his kids. Well, despite being uptight 24/7! I wonder if Murray based the beginning part of his character in Groundhog Day on Dreyfus' Dr. Marvin? Bob is clingy. Super clingy! But Murray is hip as usual!!The original Henry Blake character from MASH is in this film. Just saying. I liked this movie!!

Psychotherapist Leo Marvin (Richard Dreyfuss) is looking forward to his month long vacation with his family, but accepts one final 'session' with Bob Wiley (Bill Murray) who is a patient of a 'recently' retired doctor. The initial session between doctor and patient proves to be a success, but when Wiley learns that Marvin is going to be away for a month, Wiley makes it his mission to track his doctor down...I really wanted to like this film as Bill Murray is the best of his kind at this sort of film when the material is right, but this film is so off-the-wall that it's almost hard to know where to begin..I'm prepared to accept that it starts well; it establishes Murray as a neurotic patient and Dreyfuss as the indifferent shrink who seems more interested in money than in helping out his patient - you feel as though the film has a sense of karma about it when the credits roll...And yet I could never entirely enjoy this film and that's mainly down to the tone; for a start Bob is introduced as a wacko character, but the film offers no real understanding of his character. From an early stage, this makes his character hard to identify with or get to grips with, but then it gets worse...In order to track down his doctor, Bob then impersonates a detective 'investigating' a suicide which for all intents and purposes everyone believes is Bob's suicide. Bob does this to find out where his doctor is spending his vacation. All of this is achieved by Bob in a cold and calculating manner and not in a way that can be laughed off in an 'idiot learns things by fortuitous luck' way such as in films like Dumb and Dumber. This is all a bit creepy and suggests that Bob is more savvy than he lets on that he is.The film then carries on in this weird and morose way; Murray hangs round the family home and ingratiates himself with Dreyfuss' family, but rather than being amusing and funny, it just comes off as a bit weird and Marvin's family readily accepting Bob into their home is also rather difficult to accept or believe. I also found it funny that Murray made a big issue at the start of the film about his character being agoraphobic, and yet this aspect of the story was ignored in the second half of the film - he seemingly has no problems in the great outdoors later in the film which makes no sense from a narrative perspective.I think the worst thing about this film is that it offers no commentary on patient mental health problems; films like Dream Team and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest do at least try and put a positive spin on their characters and on their mental health problems which makes these films funnier, deeper and generally more endearing. Bill Murray puts on a good show here, but his character is given no real dimension, endearing qualities or depth and a result of these things we're given no real reason to give a damn about what happens to his character. In order to try to be funny in the later stages the film tries to suggest that the doctor is perhaps as crazy as the patient but it never really works. I found the film a little too socially awkward and found that the scenario that was presented to me never allowed me to laugh as much as I should do and it also never had enough believability about it to make it work.The main reason that this film is getting 4 stars out of 10 is for Bill Murray's efforts - I felt that he did what the director told him to do and got the most out of his role. Richard Dreyfuss was great and the child actors were also good. This leaves me with Julie Hagerty who unfortunately put in a terrible performance as Dreyfuss' wife.Sadly the tonal imbalance left me with a film that was more creepy and disturbing than funny and unfortunately whilst watching this film I found myself stopping and wondering 'Should I be laughing here' and 'Is this something I should find funny?' For me, if you need these prompts then the film simply isn't funny.

Bill Murray, Richard Dreyfuss, Julie Hagerty, Charlie Korsmo and Kathryn Erbe star in this 1991 comedy. This begins in New York where we meet Bob Wiley (Murray), a misanthrope who meets psychiatrist, Leo Marvin (Dreyfuss) who is about to spend a month on vacation with his family in New Hampshire. After Leo tries to help Bob with his illness, Bob tracks him down at his lake house and starts getting on his nerves. Hagerty (Airplane) plays Leo's wife, Fay, Korsmo (Dick Tracy) plays their son, Siggy and Erbe (Law & Order) plays Anna, their daughter. This is a good comedy and Murray & Dreyfuss are great in it. I recommend this.