What’s Aged the Worst?
The panel tests the movie’s sympathy for Bob, Leo’s attempted murder, older comedy’s indifference to extreme violence, and its period skepticism toward psychiatry, while disagreeing over whether the target is therapists generally or celebrity hucksters.
In the discussion (7)
Approx. transcript time · 00:45:20Read transcript
- A modern reading can see Bob as a sociopath who invades Leo’s family and helps drive him into a yearlong collapse.
- The movie goes off the rails when Leo tries to murder Bob.
- The attempted murder is compared with older comedies that used kidnapping, threats, or mass violence as jokes.
- Bob is described as trying to reach the next day, while Leo is more interested in figuring people out than helping them.
- One reading says the movie treats psychiatrists as hucksters and punishes Leo for caring more about television fame than patients.
- The counterargument is that the script respects therapy but mocks a specific fame-hungry practitioner.
- The movie is placed in the period’s “from hell” lineage, where an unwanted person enters a transactional relationship and will not leave.