Funniest Bill Murray Movie To Date

Rating: 8/10 (20 November 2017)

Sure there is a thing in life that everyone deserves forgiveness. Even when we all screw up, whether one or one billion times over and over again, we must always forgive for all who have made mistakes because in the thick of it all, we as humans are all screwed up in some way. Whether we admit it or not.
Local weather reporter Phil Connors (Bill Murray) is a condescending, arrogant, sarcastic individual who has been assigned the task to cover a fluff story on Groundhog Day, right in the heart of small town Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania where Punnxsutawney Phil, the groundhog will pop his head out of his burrow, cast his shadow to tell us six more weeks of winter. This doesn't impress Phil who feels like this is insulting to his intelligence. Just as Phil was about to return to Pittsburgh, a blizzard approaches so he ad his crew which includes his producer Rita Hanson (Andie McDowall) and his cameraman Larry (Chris Elliott) to spend a night at a hotel in the area. Only to realize that the next day, it's Groundhog Day all over again and everything that happened yesterday repeats itself again the next day and the day after and so on. Phil is trapped in some kind of vortex will tomorrow never comes.
What really makes the movie "Groundhog Day" work is that underneath the comedy and fantasy plotting is that there's a low- prolific genre of mystery involved as we try to piece the puzzle as to how Phil can get out of this bubble so that tomorrow can come and a new day will happen. While he knows that his every waking moment are the same people dong the same things like yesterday, everybody else surrounding Phil are completely oblivious. And through every repeated day, he always has an advantage. An advantage to go over his day and reconsider his wrong ways and in hopes to change his ways and thoughts and to become a better person.
The perfect individual for this task to be a better character is his co-worker Rita, who has been quite patient towards Phil's demands, quips and general lack of courtesy. As the repeated days go by where everything's planted in terms of routine, he starts to become nicer and friendlier to Rita until one particular Groundhog Day, she finally falls in love with him and a new day begins and the curse is broken.
Though it's primarily a comedy, there are very high levels of thought-provoking factors we can all certainly reflect upon. Like Bill Murray's 1988 movie classic "Scrooged", Murray is playing a similar cranky character going through extraordinary predicaments in order to live through his mistakes and to break through these burdens in order to become a better person. Even though it's a Groundhog Day movie, there is another Christmas movie that has a similar plot as well, "It's a Wonderful Life" where James Stewart's George Bailey stuck in a life where everyone's woeful without him. In "Groundhog Day" Phil discovers that everyone would be happier if he was not involved in their lives.
Directed and co-written by longtime friend of Murray's Harold Ramis, they have collaborated in several films in 1970's, 1980's and like "Stripes" and "Ghostbusters" and though they had a fallout after this movie, it was nice that Murray and Ramis made peace with each other before Ramis' death in 2014. Unlike "Scrooged" which had a more darker, misanthropic edge to its comedy, Groundhog Day" was lighter in tone and had a more greater feeling of optimism. The change of heart was well executed as the story flowed nicely, I did fall off the edge of my chair laughing at the early scenes as Phil was giving the weather report in smarmy, cynical way and cursing at the curse that brought him on journey to redemption.
The film at the time was original in delivery with a well added twist that has morals placed in while it refrains from anything remotely preachy about it. Sometimes we need a refresher course and to comes to terms that in life, we got everything we want and more and to appreciate them while we can. Our time here on Earth is limited, we just have to make the most of it.