Groundhog Day (1993)

Directed by: Harold Ramis
Starring: Bill Murray

****

No one wants the groundhog to see its shadow. After all, it means six more weeks of winter, i.e. misery. I think that's why the people of Puxsutawney, PA groan when Buster, the city official (Brian Doyle Murray) announces that Puxsutawney Phil the groundhog saw his shadow. I didn't count, nor do I think anyone should, how many February 2nds Phil Connors (Bill Murray) must endure in Groundhog Day but if I were to, I think it would probably come up short of 42 days. However, I think that those six weeks would be an appropriate amount of time since Phil's reaction and approach to each repeating day is much like how the average person goes about bearing those hard winter weeks.

I'm going to go on assuming that each day that Phil wakes up for is a metaphor for a winter day passing. On the first groundhog day of the film, the aforementioned groundhog, Puxsutawney Phil, does in fact see his shadow and thus incinuating that six more weeks of winter lie ahead. After that, Phil wakes up every single day to the tune of Sonny and Cher's I Got you Babe and the obnoxious radio DJs complaining about the cold. Each day that we wake up, whether it be winter, spring, summer or fall, I believe that our subconcious approaches that particular day differently. Often times, in the dread of winter, we wake up groaning and we sleepwalk through the day without much hope or longing for tomorrow. Once Phil accepts the fact that he's going to continuously wake up on February 2nd (a sequence that very appropriately goes by quickly) we see him wake up miserable and he sleepwalks through each day, slowly learning how to cope with the routine challenges that are presented to him. Avoiding a puddle in a pothole could very well represent any everyday annoyance one must learn to sidestep. Soon, we see Phil put on a different approach. That approach that occasionally we all wake up with and we think that we'll just take the bull by the horns and make the best out of each day. Finally, Phil is so miserable, he contemplates just ending it all.

Groundhog Day very wisely focuses on its story. It lets the comic genius of Bill Murray provide the laughs. By doing this, we get a very structured, well thoughtout story with good characters, believable relationships and real conflicts. Its funny because Bill Murray is, like I said, a comic genius. As it tells this story of a man living the same day over and over again, it presents us with every situation we as an audience would like to see unfold when someone has the luxury of knowing exactly what will happen. When Phil asks a women where she went to high school and who her 12th grade English teacher was, he knows that he'll be able to use that information tomorrow to convince her that they know each other and then of course to..... Its brilliantly funny to see and to understand how this trick he plays would probably work if what's happening to Phil could happen in reality. When Phil tries to win over Rita (Andie MacDowell) by buying her a drink and proposing a toast to the groundhog, he learns that Rita always drinks to world peace. So the next day, after ordering the same drink as he knows she'll order to suggest they have much in common, he admits that he likes to say a prayer and drink to world peace. So they do so and... he closes his prayer with the subtlest, yet funniest "Amen".

At first, I began to criticize this film for moving to fast. Before I knew it, I was already watching the third and forth and tenth February 2nd and was thinking, I don't know anything about this man, I don't really care to see someone I don't know every single day. Well, neither does Phil which could be the reason he punches Ned Rierson (Stephen Tobolowsky) before he can again explain to him that he sells life insurance and that even if Phil doesn't remember him, he sure as heck fire remembers Phil. The point is, we learn more about Phil as each day passes. Its not as important who Phil was to begin with, its who he becomes. Phil changes in an Ebeneezer Scrooge type of way. He gets to see what his mistakes cost him and he gets another chance, a lot more chances actually.

I've laughed harder and more consistently at other Bill Murray movies but there are only a handful at most that are better overall than Groundhog Day. The laughs in this film don't come cheap and as a result they compliment the story rather than try to make up the whole movie. Its a smart comedy with a message hidden somewhere deep enough that its not cheesy but close enough to the surface that its understandable. All that aside, I think if I were put in Phil Connors shoes for those long, continuous February 2nds, I'd probably pull all the same tricks.