Life Lessons from What About Bob

Or, How I took a permanent vacation from my problems

Imagine if What About Bob were remade today.

In the original film, Bob Wiley was a neurotic shut-in, but in 2026, he could be a striving Zoomer.

If you’ve seen the film, you’ll recall that he lives in New York City, where he shares an apartment with his fish Gil. He only goes out for necessities and to see his psychiatrist. He “works from home,” punching a time card each day before he sits at his desk. All the while, he psyches himself up with self-help mantras like, “I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful.”

Of course, he wouldn’t have any friends to speak of, but that’s typical of young people today.

In the remake, Dr. Leo Marvin would be the sensitive therapist. When Bob initially presented and told him, “The simplest way to put it, I have problems,” Dr. Marvin would realize he needed to break all his rules this time.

He would try to vacation in beautiful Lake Winnipesaukee, but he wouldn’t be able to sleep. He couldn’t stop thinking about his patient. When Bob showed up unexpectedly, against his better judgement (it’s breaking patient-doctor boundaries), Dr. Marvin would let him stay.

Bob wouldn’t get better, per se, but he’d eventually realize that the real work he needed to do was the inner work of accepting himself: “The simplest way to put it, I have problems…and I’m okay with that.”

I like having Timothee Chalamet and Steve Carell reprise their father-son dynamic from Beautiful Boy for maximum nostalgia baiting.

“Baby steps, Bob.”

Thankfully, the real What About Bob was made back in 1991, so even though Bob is a relatable protagonist today, the message of the film is far deeper than “you’re perfect just the way you are.” Because while What About Bob is ostensibly a movie about a neurotic patient driving his psychiatrist crazy, it really is a meditation on what heals a troubled soul.

At his intake with Dr. Leo Marvin (Richard Dreyfuss), Bob describes himself thus:

The simplest way to put it, I have problems. I worry about diseases. So, I have trouble touching things. In public places, it’s almost impossible. I have a real big problem moving.

As long as I’m in my apartment, I’m okay. But when I want to go out, I get weird.

…

I get dizzy spells, nausea, cold sweats, hot sweats, fever, blisters, difficulty breathing, difficulty swallowing, blurred vision, involuntary trembling, dead hands, numb lips, fingernail sensitivity, pelvic discomfort.

…

What if my heart stops beating? What if I’m looking for a bathroom, I can’t find it, and…my bladder explodes?

He admits he sometimes fakes Tourette’s because, “If I fake it, then I don’t have it.” To illustrate the point, he then fakes a cardiac arrest and begins writhing on the floor. In response to all this, Dr. Marvin gives him a copy of his new book Baby Steps and sends Bob on his way. Tomorrow, Dr. Marvin begins a monthlong vacation, and he tells Bob he’ll see him when he gets back.

The next day, Bob begins calling Dr. Marvin obsessively and eventually tracks him down to Lake Winnipesaukee. Once he arrives, Bob steadily improves while Dr. Marvin unravels. Bob charms Dr. Marvin’s family, nails the “Good Morning America” interview, and transforms into a sweet, albeit quirky, man. Dr. Marvin feuds with his family, bombs the “Good Morning America” interview, and after accidentally blowing his house up, he enters a catatonic state.

What About Bob spoofs lots of psychobabble. There’s Dr. Marvin’s book Baby Steps. There’s the prescription he writes for Bob: “A Vacation from My Problems.” And when he eventually tries to blow Bob up, Dr. Marvin calls it “Death Therapy.” Dr. Marvin even pulls out hand puppets when he needs to have an important conversation with his daughter.

Yet what pulls Bob out of his neuroses is none of these psychological tricks. It’s when Anna invites him sailing or when Siggy shows him how to dive or when Fay makes a home-cooked meal that he literally won’t shut up about. In other words, his adoption into a loving family is what cures him. What drives Dr. Marvin crazy isn’t just that Bob won’t leave him alone, it’s that no one else can believe that Bob was faking a cardiac arrest on his psychiatrist’s floor just a few days ago. All they see is this nice, fun-loving man.

What About Bob cuts against the accepted wisdom that we need to “focus on ourselves first” and that our therapists are paid professionals, not our surrogate parents. Instead, Bob’s eventual healing points to a deeper truth.

In Hannah’s Children, a mother who had suffered from severe anxiety and depression was asked about the idea that “babies take a lot out of you.” She said:

I have struggled with depression my whole life, and my lowest point, I was living on my own by myself doing things the way I wanted, everything was about me and my brokenness, and I was very lost, and I couldn’t find out why the more focused I was on healing myself the more broken I seemed to become.

Looking back as she was expecting her fifth child, she saw how her healing began only when she stopped looking inward and began to worry about others—first through volunteering and then through starting her own family. So, yes, her children “took a lot out of her” in one sense, but they also gave her something she couldn’t supply on her own.

This idea fits with Victor Frankl’s concept of “logotherapy,” that people need to see the importance of their unique role in the world—whether in their work, their family, or through courage in the face of suffering—to break up “the typical self-centeredness of the neurotic.” He worried that turning inward was especially dangerous for people living in the “existential vacuum” of the postwar West:

No instinct tells him what he has to do, and no tradition tells him what he ought to do; sometimes he does not even know what he wishes to do. Instead, he either wishes to do what other people do (conformism) or he does what other people wish him to do (totalitarianism).

So while fears of Gen Z nihilism feel very current, Frankl was diagnosing the problem back in 1946. Looking through his lens, you shouldn’t be surprised if young people today are miserable.

They find their jobs meaningless and fake.

Their bed rotting and overabundance numb them.

And the one source of meaning that would be most accessible—namely love for a spouse or children—is the one that is most cautioned against. This is true for marrying “too young,” but it’s especially the case for starting a family.

In the past year, I saw two different dentists, and both—despite having families of their own—were down on kids. When I mentioned that I had three young kids, the first one said, “That’s great, you can be an empty-nester by fifty!” When I visited the second one and mentioned how I had three kids, he told me, “That’s great! I have four kids. Four is too many.”

The implication being, were I single, or at least childfree, then I would be happy. But I was single and childfree not that long ago, and I was far more miserable! I worried about how to properly enjoy my Saturdays, how to optimize my morning routine, and of course, I worried about why I wasn’t happier. I don’t have time for any of that nonsense now!

When you see me schlepping three kids through the grocery store, you may think I’m harried, disheveled, or “brave” (as I am sometimes told), but what I really am is free. Free from the loneliness of an empty home. Free from neurotic navel-gazing. Free from the ennui of a comfortably numb life.

When I became a parent, I took a vacation from my problems, and Lord willing, I’ll get to stay on it the rest of my life.