An outstanding comedy-fantasy film

Rating: 10/10 (16 June 2015)

Groundhog Day is an outstanding comedy-fantasy film about an egotistical TV weatherman named Phil Connors, played by Bill Murray, who resents being forced by his Pittsburgh news producer to head to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania and cover the reveal of whether the groundhog will see his shadow on Groundhog's Day. Thinking he's a god amongst women, he assumes his travel producer Rita, played by Andie MacDowell, lusts after him and he can't help but take pot shots at his cameraman Larry, played by Chris Elliott. Once Phil has completed his day and is trapped overnight in Punxsutawney due to a blizzard closing down the highway back to Pittsburgh, he ends up in a time loop that forces him to repeat the same day over and over. He seems to be the only person who remembers already going through that day previous and even when he gets so desperate as to kill himself, he continually wakes up at 6AM on Groundhog Day back in his bed and breakfast room.
The movie focuses itself around the theme that to really achieve anything in life we must let go of ourselves and open up to those around us. Phil remains self-centered through much of the film. After he first tries repeated attempts to kill himself due to the imagined torture of spending eternity repeating a day he deems miserable, he continues to make the same mistakes as he takes advantage of the knowledge he gains to seduce Rita and steal money from an armored car.
For much of the movie, the lighting is pretty drab. Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney, at least through Phil's eyes, is very dull. Setting the movie on Groundhog Day in Pennsylvania as opposed to Miami Beach on the Fourth of July was obviously not just a coin flip by the writers. We are supposed to see the same dull, blandness that Phil sees and this lighting in Pennsylvania in February is very believable. In fact, we barely get even a hint of sunlight until the very end when Groundhog Day finally ends and life for Phil continues, lesson learned.
The camera angles in this movie really reveal a lot about Phil as well. Much of the time we are looking up at him even if just slightly. This gives the impression that he's bigger than he really is and points to his inflated ego. When the camera cuts back and forth between Phil and whoever he is talking to in over-the-shoulder shots, we are looking from Phil's view down toward the person he is speaking with and up toward Phil from the opposite angle. On characters like Rita, this could be passed off as being because she is much shorter than Phil. But this angle is even used on characters the same height as Phil, such as Ned Ryerson. The exception to this is the Sheriff that closes the highway in the blizzard. In this case, the camera angle looking up from Phil toward him indicates the Sheriff's power but we also notice that we don't see any of Phil in these shots. As Phil starts to change his ways toward the end of the movie, the camera no longer looks down on the others but even Rita, who is obviously shorter, is shot from a lower angle as well making all the characters appear to be on level playing field with Phil.
The film has a similar theme as another Bill Murray movie, Scrooged, which of course was based on the Charles Dickens' story A Christmas Carol. In both films, Murray plays a self-absorbed man who learns he must change his ways, however, Groundhog Day does a much better job with its message. This movie you can easily see the true struggle Phil must go through to open himself up to those around him and think about everyone else instead of himself for a change.