Musical score absolutely RUINS this film
-
Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — What About Bob?
rowla — 9 years ago(August 03, 2016 05:24 PM)
It's not that often that a musical score can single-handedly destroy the viewing experience of an otherwise decent film, but by God, this score does so in fine style. Such a shame too, because technically speaking, there is a good film here.. It just lacked the right score to match it's subject matter.
At the core of this film, there lies quite a darker essence (Clinically unstable man willingly stalks and invades life of doctor causing doctor to go insane to the point of committing murder), which I feel would have been wonderfully realised with a darker, more eerie score. Instead, we got an upbeat, slapsticky and frankly down-right irritating score, filled with generic "this is funny" cues that ironically take originality and fun out of the film instead of enhancing it.. We don't need to be constantly reminded that something is funny just because it is.
A perfect example would be the scene where Dr Marvin is attempting to blow up Bob in the woods. In the midst of it all, the same silly, upbeat themes continue. Had the music been of a more serious and urgent nature, the scene would have been much more effective.. Because at this point in the movie, Leo has clearly lost his mind and is about to commit a rather horrendous murder.. That's the joke and we get it; The irony of the fact that he has ended up more disturbed than the very patient he was treating and vice versa. We don't need overly-jovial, "funny" music to slap us on the face to tell us that.