A must see

Rating: 9/10 (17 October 2005)

It seems to me to be an impossible task to add anything new to the rave reviews this film has received but I'll try.
This was made ten years before "Lost In Translation" and Bill Murray gets his true first chance to stretch his acting muscles and give us an extraordinary performance as Phil Connors, a careless, arrogant, egotistical weather man.
Every year he sets out for Groundhog Day in Puxatawney, Pennsylvania, to catch his namesake coming up and casting a shadow (or not) for 6 more weeks of winter. Phil doesn't even bother to conceal his contempt for all that surrounds him, including his TV audience.
Aye, but here's the rub. This year, Phil is destined to repeat this day over and over until he gets it right. Once it dawns on him that he is in an endless spin cycle of the same twenty four hours, he keeps experimenting with it, playing with it, even resorting to killing himself a few times, knowing that he will wake up again the following day and it will be Groundhog Day all over again.
Bill brings an incredibly nuanced performance to the transformation of Phil. Andie McDowell (whom I normally despise and put her in the same one-note class as Mary Steenbergen, all hair and non-stop-come-hither eyes) as Rita, his producer who is completely turned off by Phil, plays well against him. But it is not about getting the girl at all.
And this is where the movie aims for an incredible target, that of inner transformation for the sake of that transformation alone. In hands other than those of Harold Ramis (who has a small role in the movie also) this lofty ideal could have crashed and burned, but here it is extraordinary to see this egotistical man become of value to himself, tiny step by tiny step.
He takes this endless eternity of the same day and starts to learn ice sculpture, piano playing, CPR, among other things. We don't have to see many of his attempts on screen and we are slowly made aware that he has befriended many in the town and is needed every day for aid and comfort and even life saving work.
None of the points we observe are two by fours over the head. I would actually use the word "Profound" about this film. There is much to mull over, how are we all spending our days, could we be of more value to those around us but more importantly to ourselves if we took the time to become aware.
Inspiring on all levels, superlative in both its comic and romantic genius, this film is up there in my 100 best of all time. The message lingers. A must see. 9 out of 10.