When you are trapped in one day and cannot escape.

Rating: 7/10 (15 July 2012)

This is a strange movie because there are some existentialist elements to it, some elements of Carpe Diem, and some elements of the inability of humanity to control his or her environment. I have never seen a movie with this sort of plot before and as such I consider it to be incredibly unique and as such worth watching and considering, if only for a unique plot. Not only is the plot unique, but the main character, Phil (Bill Murry) grows and develops through the film as he tries to come to terms with what is happening to him.
Phil is a weather man in a small television station in Pittsburg. He wants something better but all he is doing now is going up to a town which is the home of Groundhog Day, the day when Phil the Groundhog comes out of his home and if he sees his shadow then there will be six more weeks of winter. He hates the town and the day, even though festivities go on all night and all day, all he wants to do is get back to the city and hopefully move up in the world. He cannot get back though as a blizzard has moved in. He returns, goes to sleep and wakes up 6:00 Groundhog Day, and the day repeats itself, and continues to do so. There is no explanation as to why this happens, but one can assume that it is his rather self-serving attitude. He wants to get out of the town, but the town won't let him go.
The existentialist element comes up as he is drinking at the bowling alley with some of the town drunks. He says to them, "what would you do if everyday seems to be the same." This is literal where Phil is concerned, but the others see this as life. Groundhog Day is just a break in the monotony of everyday life. Get up, go to work, go home, go to sleep. Nothing changes. When he realises this he basically runs amok. To the guys he is with, this is serious, but Phil is testing the water, and sure enough, when he wakes up the day has started again, and nothing has leaked over from the previous day.
At first this is fun, as he takes advantage of all the knowledge that he can accumulate and use against people, but he soon comes to realise how powerless he is where no matter what he does, he just simply cannot get his producer (Addie McDowel) to sleep with him. He knows everything about her, but the way he is, the sleaze, he simply cannot get what he wants from her. The Carpe Diem aspects come along here where he sees that he can seize the day, and he certainly does because he knows everything that happens, and by the end of the film, he can prevent almost all of the disasters from happening (almost all as he is powerless to prevent the death of the town drunk).
As he goes through this one day, he soon comes to see how powerless he is. This is seen with his inability to get his producer to bed, and moreso, his inability to die. He tries everything but he always wakes up in the morning. Not only that, he cannot stop an old man from dying. He can save a kid, he can save a man from choking, and he can get a hesitant fiancée to marry her fiancé, but he cannot stop a man from dying of old age. No matter the advantage of knowing everything about everybody and everything that is going to happen in this one day, he is still human and he is powerless to stop death.
This is the most humbling aspect of Phil, for he tries everything, but he always finds that by the end of the day this man is dead. He cannot stop it. He calls himself a god, but he knows that he is really a man.
How does he get out of it? Well the movie does not really explain how. You know when, and I will not reveal that, but there is no reason why. There is no reason why it starts and no reason why it ends. What does happen is that he starts off as a slime, and ends as the most loving and caring man that anybody could know. The question is, what happens to him when he wakes up the next day? Now that he is out, how long does it take for him to return to his former self. One can see glimpses of his former self beginning to shine through that next day. One thing about Phil, is that he is only human.