Holidays, both national and general, have become synonymous with certain movies, and not just in and of themselves and their respective traditions. Said films or specials have even become traditions year after year. For Halloween, many hold It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966) above other fright-fest features often associated with pumpkin-carving and costume-wearing. For Thanksgiving, there's John Hughes' Planes, Trains, & Automobiles (1987), where Steve Martin's impatient Neil Page is forced to share a road trip with John Candy's slobby-but-warm Del Griffith. And don't get me started on the countless Christmas movies that are watched annually, from A Christmas Story (1983) to National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989) and, of course, It's a Wonderful Life (1946). Even late director Garry Marshall's last three films were about annual holidays and events.
This year marks twenty five years since the release of the Harold Ramis-directed Bill Murray vehicle, Groundhog Day (1993), a high-concept, philosophical comedy about a cynical weatherman who gets stuck in a small town--and an unexplained time loop--and keeps living the same day over and over and over again.
Travelling to Punxsutawney, PA, to cover the Groundhog Day festivities with producing partner Rita (Andie McDowell) and cameraman Larry (Chris Elliott), weatherman Phil Connors (Murray) just wants to leave town, only to be trapped by a blizzard he failed to predict. (Ironic, right?) Waking up on February 2nd at 6:00 am to Sonny & Cher's "I Got You, Babe," certain things start to take place. An old classmate stops Phil in the street to sell insurance. Phil steps in a giant puddle on the street corner. He visits a diner later in the day where a waiter accidentally drops a tray of dishes, and so on. The next morning, however, Phil gets confused. The same song plays on the radio, as does the same broadcast. The weather looks as it did the day before. He runs into the same classmate and the same puddle. And on it goes. It's as if he's in an episode of "The Twilight Zone". But by Day 3, he becomes really stressed. Furthermore, Rita doesn't believe his predicament, and the local neurologist and psychiatrist don't seem to be much help neither.
Venting his melancholy at a bar with two other patrons, Phil wonders, "What would you do if you were stuck in one place and everyday was the same, and nothing that you did mattered?" The patron's response: "That about sums it up for me." Eventually, Phil figures since he's apparently trapped without a certain tomorrow, he could do anything without any consequences.
By Day 4, he starts acting so cynical and egocentric that he even eats like a glutton. "What makes you so special?" argues Rita, who refuses to believe Phil is acting and living without a care in the world, "Everybody worries about something." She even goes so far as to call Phil's egotism his "defining characteristic." One of his other acts for the time being involves meeting up with various women, including an old high school classmate, whom he tries to take advantage of (clearly not knowing what real love is).
By this point, anyone who hasn't seen this film may think the repetition of the same day, events and circumstances, becomes tiring. The genius of the script by Ramis and Danny Rubin, however, is that while each day is replayed, it's seen slightly different based on Phil's view, even based on what time of the day it is. One of these days (replays, rather), he speaks like he's directing the events unfolding, decides to steal bank money and buys an an expensive car for a movie night (with a new date). Everybody does the same thing, of course, but not Phil. More specifically, the things that change are his influences on the day, for better or worse. (Other movies have used this same formula since this films release, including the Adam Sandler-Drew Barrymore comedy 50 First Dates (2004), the sci-fi action-thrillers Source Code (2011) and Edge of Tomorrow (2014), and the recent horror-thriller Happy Death Day (2017), but not to the same level of fresh avail that Murray, Rubin and Ramis reached with it.)
Then, Phil turns to Rita. He asks her what she wants out of life, as if she had one day to do it. She asks him the same thing. He decides he wants to get to know Rita more, what she's looking for, including the "perfect guy." His many opportunities to get to know Rita--and to try and be better--over and over seem to mirror our own fallen or failing nature, and our need to be better people. (It's interesting that the film's trailers seemed to emphasis this romance notion, leading viewers to believe the film was going to be a romantic comedy.) Phil may think he knows Rita, but he really doesn't. (Not yet, at least.)
The parallels between Phil and groundhog "Punxsutawney Phil"s, considering the aforementioned loop, start to come into play as the story goes on. There are the themes of predictions, expectations, and things turning out not as people planned or hoped, no matter how hard we try. Rita is wise enough to see through to Phil and his feeble attempts, which result in slaps in the face. ("Is this what love is for you?") The moral here: love and sex are not the same thing.
Phil eventually sinks into depression, venting angrily at everyone around him, believing there is no way out of his situation. (The slow-motion shot of the alarm clock switching from 5:59 to 6:00 is loud and profound.) "As long as this groundhog sees his shadow, we'll be stuck in winter. And I have to stop him." He tries to end the cycle on his own terms, such as breaking the alarm clock several times, and even tries to kill himself in a dark montage (driving off a cliff with "Punxsutawney Phil" in their only scene together, putting a hot toaster in a bathtub, stepping in front of a bus, and jumping off a building). I have a general view on the theme of suicide, that it is not, nor should it be, funny. In the case of Groundhog Day, there seems to be a real sense of gloom to this montage, especially the latter moment with the building.
Thankfully, the story and movie doesn't end there.
From the next time in the diner, the story takes a different turn, and one for the better. After eventually (and genuinely) convincing Rita, she decides to spend the rest of the (current) day with him, though Phil knows she won't remember anything the next day. From here, Phil really starts to change, and becomes more understanding. He realizes he cannot change the circumstances around him, although he can have an effect on them. He can only (and must first) change himself.
He begins to do unto others, such as buying his colleagues coffee and Danish, taking piano lessons, learning how to ice sculpt, and even helping a homeless (and dying) man.
Illustrating the value of community, Phil, in a way, becomes something of a local town hero. "No matter what happens tomorrow, or the rest of my life," he tells Rita later, "right now I'm happy, because I love you." The late Roger Ebert noted and claimed, regarding the earlier scene between Phil and Rita in the diner (as he tells her, "When you stand in the snow, you look like an angel"), that Phil hasn't learned to love Rita, but that "he has learned to see the angel."
Ramis (who passed away in February 2014) said of the film's moral, "If you change one thing in your own life, everything could change." Well done for a now-revered, classic "holiday" film that handles its respective themes (including subtle spiritual elements) very well, not to mention its balancing of comedy and genuine drama.
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