It's Deja Vu---all over again

Rating: Null/10 (15 April 2001)

Have you ever had a bad day--a REALLY bad day--and replayed all of the horrible things that went wrong in your mind, wondering what you could have done differently to make things turn out better? This is the dilemma facing Pittsburgh's Channel 9 weatherman Phil Connors as he journeys to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania for the seventh year in a row to cover the annual ritual to see if his namesake, Punxsutawney Phil, the town's resident groundhog will emerge to see his shadow, thus consigning us to six more weeks of winter before the arrival of spring.
Bill Murray is Phil Connors, and things have not been going too well for him. Life's experiences have made him cynical, arrogant, self-serving, and just plain hard to get along with. His producer, Rita (played charmingly by Andie MacDowell) and Channel 9 cameraman Larry (Chris Elliott), who accompany Phil to Punxsutawney, can barely tolerate him. His life has sunk so low, the only way to go is up--and the road to redemption takes a strange turn.
Forced to remain in Punxsutawney when the Channel 9 crew is trapped by a sudden snowstorm, Phil Connors awakens the next morning to the realization it is groundhog day--again. All of the events of the previous day play themselves out all over again--but Phil is the only one who is aware the day is repeating itself.
Thinking it is all a bad dream, Phil Connors returns to his bed-and-breakfast, only to awaken the next morning to find--it is groundhog day all over again. Now in a panic, he realizes he is stuck in some kind of a time warp and turns to Rita for help. Naturally, she does not understand what he is talking about and thinks he is going crazy.
The next morning, guess what? It is groundhog day again. And again the next morning. And the next. It seems Phil Connors is doomed to relive the same day over and over again forever. At first, he tries to end it all by committing suicide, but the next morning, he wakes up in his bed again. After all, it is groundhog day again and yesterday never really happened.
After awhile, Phil begins to realize he has the power to change the circumstances of the day, since he already knows in advance what is going to happen. He begins to fall for Rita and attempts to develop a relationship with her. At some point, though, she rebuffs him. He then is able to figure out what he did wrong and the next day makes an adjustment which moves him closer to his goal.
At first, true to his character, Phil has ulterior motives. However, somewhere along the way, he figures out that the way he responds to people affects the quality of his own life. His redemption is complete. He wins Rita. He becomes the most popular person in Punxsutawney and when he wakes up the next morning, groundhog day is past and his life can move on.
There is a real lesson for us all here. We can improve the quality of our lives, not by our circumstances, but by how we respond to them. We, too, have the power to change our lives just by changing our attitudes. GROUNDHOG DAY is a parable of the redemption of a lost human spirit, in the tradition of A CHRISTMAS CAROL and IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. It is an up-to-date adaptation of this theme, some element of which everyone can identify with. Murray and McDowell make a terrific team. A look at this film always improves my outlook on life, no matter the circumstances.