Groundhog Day basics

From the outset of Harold Ramis’ film Groundhog Day (1993), it is evident that Phil Connors (Bill Murray), a prima-donna local television weatherman in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is—to use the apt words of a poem quoted in the film by his producer Rita (Andie MacDowell)—“a wretch, concentered all in self,” well on his way toward the fate Sir Walter Scott predicted for his kind: “forfeit[ing] fair renown” and, “doubly dying,” both in his soul and in the world, returning “to the vile dust from whence he sprung, unwept, unhonored, and unsung.” Though possessing a wickedly sarcastic sense of humor, he shows nothing but disdain for others and turns his wit upon them. Phil Connors is egomaniacal and, for all his wit, a genuinely detestable human being. But that is before he endures the endless repetition of a single Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, during which he becomes a human being capable of caring about something more than himself, a human being worthy of being loved and capable of loving others. {Or add your own thesis statement in place of this one.}

Groundhog Day

Roger Ebert, Chicago Tribune

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19930212/REVIEWS/302120302/1023

 

There is an old belief that everyone is rewarded with the heaven or hell that he deserves. For Phil, the nasty, self-centered weather forecaster played by Bill Murray in "Groundhog Day," that hell reveals itself one morning in the Groundhog Capitol of Punxsutawney, Pa. He has journeyed there to do a remote broadcast about his namesake, the groundhog Punxsutawney Phil, who every year informs the nation whether it will have six more weeks of winter. Now the alarm goes off in Murray's bed & breakfast room, and he awakens to find it is . . . Groundhog Day, all over again. It will be Groundhog Day again tomorrow, too, and on the day after that. In another sense, tomorrow will never come. Groundhog Day will repeat itself over and over and over again, apparently until the end of time, and Phil will be permanently condemned to cover it. He's trapped in some kind of time warp.

 

As Phil figures out the rules of his dilemma, we do, too. His world is inhabited by the same people every day, but they don't know that Groundhog Day is repeating itself. He is the only one who can remember what happened yesterday. That gives him a certain advantage: He can, for example, find out what a woman is looking for in a man, and then the "next" day he can behave in exactly the right way to impress her.

 

Luckily there is a woman close at hand to practice on. She's Rita (Andie MacDowell), Phil's long-suffering producer, who has had to put up with his tantrums, demands, surliness and general lack of couth. As day follows day, Phil is gradually able to see the error of his ways, and improve his behavior until finally, to her surprise, a Groundhog Day dawns when she finally likes him. The movie is basically a comedy, but there's an underlying dynamic that is a little more thoughtful. Like Scrooged, Murray's dreary 1988 film, this is a movie about a grouch in the process of self-redemption: A supernatural force is showing him his weaknesses. Another movie that comes to mind is It's a Wonderful Life, although that film showed James Stewart how bad life would have been without his help, and this one shows Murray that people might actually have been cheerier without his contributions.

 

Groundhog Day was directed and co-written by Harold Ramis, Murray's fellow Ghostbuster and a partner from their Second City days. The film is lovable and sweet. If Scrooged seemed to reflect a dour discontent, this one is more optimistic about the human race, and the Murray character is likable by the end. That's a mixed blessing, since Murray is funnier in the early scenes in which he is delivering sardonic weather reports and bitterly cursing the fate that brought him to Punxsutawney in the first place. Formula comedies are a dime a dozen. Those based on an original idea are more rare, and Groundhog Day, apart from everything else, is a demonstration of the way time can sometimes give us a break. Just because we're born as SOBs doesn't mean we have to live that way.

Groundhog Day

Hal Hinson, Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/groundhogdaypghinson_a0a7e9.htm

 

The most horrible thing about life is not knowing what's going to happen next. Or at least that's what we have thought up till now. But "Groundhog Day," Harold Ramis's brilliantly imaginative, wildly funny new comedy starring Bill Murray, demonstrates that there is something even more horrible—knowing exactly what's going to happen next. This isn't merely a subtext of "Groundhog Day." It is the movie's core—and that, along with a masterfully loony performance by Murray, makes this the best American comedy since "Tootsie."

 

The movie is like some insane mongrel commingling of It's a Wonderful Life, The Twilight Zone and Luis Bunuel's The Exterminating Angel. Yet it is very much a film by the man who directed Murray (with another burrowing rodent) in Caddyshack. In other words, it springs straight from the heart of the great tradition of American trash surrealism, which is precisely what makes it so immediately and delightfully accessible, so multilayered and rich without pretension. In the Bunuel film, sterling aristocrats gather for dinner, but afterward find themselves inexplicably trapped in the dining room, perhaps, they fear, for all eternity. This is something like what happens to Phil, a self-important Pittsburgh weatherman, except that there is nothing sterling about Phil and, if anything, his situation is even more disturbingly peculiar.

 

Phil is not a liked man, nor is he likable; he is, in short, a case of walking halitosis, which makes him a perfect character for Murray. At the beginning of the picture he, his fetching new producer (Andie MacDowell) and his cameraman (Chris Elliot) make their annual winter pilgrimage to Punxsutawney, Pa., to visit another Phil, the world's most famous weather forecaster, on Groundhog Day. From the outset, it's a toss-up as to which Phil is more rodentlike. The human Phil looks upon this assignment with the grim anticipation of a man facing the gallows. Certainly, he's far too big a star for this kind of Hicksville human-interest stuff, and his mission seems to be to make everyone he comes into contact with as miserable as he is. All he wants to do is shoot the segment, pack up the gear and get back to Pittsburgh. Unfortunately, a blizzard blocks the roads and downs all the phone lines, so all he can do is head back to his hotel, pull the covers over his head and wait for tomorrow.

 

Only tomorrow never comes.

 

At 6 a.m., the radio alarm clock next to his bed awakens him, just as it had the day before, with the same song—Sonny and Cher singing "I Got You, Babe"—and the same inane patter. When the hotel clerk, the restaurant hostess, his producer, his cameraman—everyone—all speak exactly the same words they had spoken to him the day before, Phil realizes he has a problem. He's stuck in his own private Hades, in Punxsutawney, on Feb. 2. After a few days of this, most films would run out of invention and grow tiresome. But Ramis, who wrote the script with Danny Rubin, comes up with so many inspired variations on the day's events, and runs Murray through so many different reactions to his ordeal, that we never grow bored. How could we, with Murray ricocheting from elation to suicidal despair to depressed resignation? Murray is a breed unto himself, a sort of gonzo minimalist. And he's never been funnier as a comedian or more in control as an actor than he is here. It's easily his best movie.

 

After absorbing the initial shock, Phil becomes giddy with his new-found freedom. His actions, he discovers, have no consequences whatsoever. He can eat anything, drink anything, do anything to anybody, and tomorrow morning at 6, the slate is wiped clean. Being the sleaze that he is, he immediately takes full advantage—setting up beautiful women today for tomorrow's seduction, robbing banks and performing minor miracles. Phil's main target, though, is Rita (MacDowell), his producer, a sweet, smart, kindhearted beauty who under normal circumstances would brush him off like so much dandruff. But one night, after trying and trying again, day after day, compiling lists of her favorite poems, her favorite songs, her favorite ice cream flavors, he is able to break down her resistance and almost get her into bed. This near-miss is the best he can manage, though, and he decides, first, to drive himself off a cliff, then to electrocute himself, step in front of a bus, and, finally, hurl himself off a high building. But it's no go. Come the morn, he's back where he started.

 

Though bewitchingly pretty, MacDowell has never really found her niche in the movies, but playing this knucklehead brand of modern screwball comedy, she has finally come into her own. Her scenes with Murray have an otherworldly sort of chemistry (with Murray, what else is possible?). And his vermin eccentricity releases a charming flakiness in her; for the first time, her endearing awkwardness really seems to work.

 

Ramis has always been a better actor and writer than director. But here he shows remarkably keen comic timing, especially in the way he surprises us by cutting, at just the right instant, from one high point to another. With a script as beautifully complex as this one, Ramis and his cast have half of their work done for them. There is a moral to the tale as well, and it even strikes an uplifting note. But, for once, the audience isn't forced to surrender its intelligence (or its healthy cynicism) to embrace the film's sunny resolution. When Phil has his change of heart, he doesn't suddenly become a stranger. He's the same man, the same jerk, but a far wiser, more likable jerk. With another star, the movie's message might have been insufferably icky. But Murray's double-jointed ironic charm is our insurance against dishonest optimism. If this caterpillar becomes a butterfly, it's a butterfly with a lot of worm left in him.