Can be understood without knowing much background info on the holiday; but such info makes for a richer movie-watching experience.

Rating: 10/10 (31 January 2006)

Groundhog Day is a holiday with deep roots in the pagan past. It is our only holiday whose theme is weather. It occurs at a time of year when weather occupies our thoughts more thoroughly than at any other time of the year. We know we're still stuck in winter, but enough of the winter has elapsed that we now feel justified in looking ahead to the promise of the spring equinox.
More than any other holiday, Groundhog Day is the "looking-ahead" holiday. We're not so much celebrating the present on February 2 as we are a day in the not-too-distant future, the spring equinox (a very important time in the lives of ancient peoples). The spring equinox is simply being celebrated ahead of time, as Groundhog Day, on February 2. Asking us to bottle up our hopes until three weeks in March have passed would be be just plain unreasonable, right? This analysis helps explain all the talk of "forecasting" on Groundhog Day. But it isn't the Groundhog who's looking ahead, it is we. And whether it arrives early, late or on-time, this is one prediction that inevitably will prove true: spring will arrive, one way or another -- it always has. And on Groundhog Day we take solace in that fact.
As I imply in my article, "Groundhog Day and the Groundhog Day Movie" the latter can be fully understood only in this context. Like the holiday itself, the "Groundhog Day" movie is all about transition. Sure, you can discern the transition without knowing much background at all about the holiday; but such knowledge improves the experience of watching the movie.
Then again, "Groundhog Day" can be appreciated on many levels. Superficially, it can be enjoyed as a romantic comedy; Bill Murray makes it work on this level. But for those with a philosophical bent, it is a very profound movie. Some have even suggested a connection with Nietzsche's teaching of the Eternal Recurrence.