Two cents

Rating: Null/10 (5 March 2001)

I agree with those posters who say this is a terrific and underrated movie. One measure of its quality is the fact that people all over the world are still writing long, heartfelt reviews/analyses of the thing almost a decade after its release. At least a few TV programmers must share this fondness for the movie, as it reappears fairly regularly on the tube -- often, I notice, around New Year's Day (not Groundhog Day, oddly), probably because that's the day (other than our birthdays) when we most often reflect on something as abstract as the passage of time. Like an earlier poster, I think it's interesting that we haven't heard a thing from Danny Rubin since he wrote this movie. Perhaps that was a nom de plume? For who(m)? one wonders. In a way it's sort of attractive to think of this guy suddenly appearing one day in Hollywood with this wonderful, understatedly profound script, handing it to Harold Ramis or whomever, then vanishing, never to be heard from again. Maybe he realized he wasn't likely to surpass himself. You wonder if he's even a professional writer. He could be a...weatherman, for all we know. Surely somebody somewhere knows what this fellow is doing now, but I kind of want it to remain a mystery. Not that I can improve upon the outpouring of commentary seen already, but I'll mention the movie's suggestion (an assertion, really, though understated) that, had we but world enough and time, we all should inevitably become saints, simply because to follow any other path in life would be boring and pointless. I think it's in the simplicity and certitude of this message that Groundhog Day differs from almost every other movie, even those movies called "uplifting." In Hollywood plots, after all, Good most always triumphs over Evil. But this story seems to imply that the contest between Good and Evil is an illusion: there is no real choice, we can choose to do good now or do good later, but choose it we inevitably must. What a revolutionary statement about life! One isn't very often tempted to use the word "Tolstoyan" to describe creative works of any age, let alone movies from Hollywood in the late 20th Century. Yet there it is: a story that could be said to stand on its head much of Western civilization's ethical and theological teaching, all presented via perfectly timed gags, a beautiful girl, and Bill Murray. What else do you want in your entertainment?