"Have you ever had déjà-vu?"

Rating: 8/10 (13 February 2005)

What if you had to live the same day over and over and over again? Would you pick the day you were in Punxsatawney, Pa. to watch a furry animal pop out of a hole to see if winter comes in 6 weeks, or in less time? I've been to Punxsatawney, and I wouldn't want to relive that day over and over again either. Unfortunately for Bill Murray's TV weatherman character Phil Conners, that's exactly what happens in this odd little comedy directed by Harold Ramis. What begins as a comedy about "big time" TV people from Pittsburgh covering the February 2nd rite of passage in Western Pennsylvania. The story ultimately revolves around how Conners is an unhappy man and somehow, he's stuck in a time warp that he can't get out of. He tries being nice, he tries be a bastard, he tries driving out of town, he tries stealing the groundhog, he even tries dying. Nothing gets him out of February 2 in Punxsatawney. Among the many groundhog days, he discovers the world, the people around him. He's saddened by the death of a man he passed every morning. He meets a person he knew in high school, and his attitude towards him changes over time, and he realizes the happiness he needs to fulfill his life is right there in front of him. Sure it's cheesy, sure it's predictable, but there's enough Bill Murray humor early in the film and Bill Murray charm in the end of the movie to hold it together. There are some cute scenes where "one day" he asks a random woman in a coffee shop what her favorite something is, and the "next day" uses that information to score a date. There are little scenes like that through the film that rely on Murray, and the audience, buying into the premise of the film. Andie MacDowell plays Conners' TV producer and Chris Elliott plays his camera man, each has the thankless job of playing characters who have no idea that Conners is reliving each day over and over again. One thing that bothered me was the movie was not shot in Punxsatawney, rather some town in Illinois, and that bothered me a bit, but most people wouldn't know unless they were told. Oh well, at least it wasn't Toronto.