Forever In A Day

Rating: 9/10 (20 September 2013)

A wonderful, deceptively smooth blend of contemplative metaphysics and laugh-out-loud comedy, "Groundhog Day" is a defining film for Bill Murray lovers who admire the actor for his touchy-feely side as well as his deadpan wizardry.
Murray is Phil Connors, a Pennsylvania TV weatherman who travels to Punxsutawney to cover the annual Groundhog Day celebration. In just the first minutes, his boredom and misery about his situation quickly becomes a drain on everyone around him.
"Some day, somebody's gonna see me interviewing a groundhog and think I don't have a future," he quips. This proves to be an unfortunately accurate prediction when Phil wakes up every morning thereafter finding himself in the same place, reliving the same day. No future indeed.
It's a perfect Murray comedy in many ways, one being how it hearkens back to past glories. Just like in "Caddyshack," his character appears locked in a struggle with a large rodent. The same wake-up line he hears every morning, "Rise and shine, campers," calls us back to Murray's film debut, "Meatballs." But then as the film goes on, you get the depth and tragic sensibilities in tune with later Murray, of quieter art-house comedies like "Lost In Translation" and "The Life Aquatic."
Later Murray is a mixed bag for me, but I enjoy this one a lot. He's so terrific playing Phil at various stages in a long path. It is a path, even if it feels more like a treadmill to Phil: "I wake up every day, right here. Right in Punxsutawney. And it's always February 2. And there's nothing I can do about it."
The repetitive nature of "Groundhog Day" throws not a few viewers, but I enjoy them the same way I do Murray's early work on "Saturday Night Live." It's like getting a series of short, black-out sketches, with the added benefit of each building to a larger whole.
Director Harold Ramis, no stranger to this approach from his own glory days on "SCTV," frames many of these bits in a clever way. We see Phil go through the same motions again and again, like trying to pick up his luminous producer Rita (Andie MacDowell) by repeating the same basic lines with tiny adjustments to allow for her varied reactions. Repetition becomes the joke, and it's a good joke because it feeds the brilliant try-and-try-again story of life lived in microcosm as written by Danny Rubin and Ramis.
What is the film's message? It's not easy to explain. Phil alternately becomes opportunistic, despairing, accepting, and ultimately responsible. You can see it as a spiritually focused but devoutly ecumenical sermon for achieving personal growth. Or, like me, you can see a black comedy of a man's miserable inability to achieve perfection, even when he has an eternity to play with. But maybe that's because I'm a "glass-half-empty kind of guy," as one of Phil's new local friends puts it.
The negatives here are minor. As a Chris Elliott fan, I wish more had been done with his cameraman character than a few reaction shrugs. Some of the sillier comedy moments, like Phil dressing up as Clint Eastwood, plays like cutting-room fodder to me, as does an extended, maudlin sequence with a homeless man. At least that part ties into the acceptance idea, which is key to Phil's turnabout late in the film.
But taken as a whole, which is the only way to take it, this is a classic comedy, worthy of the love it gets. Why don't the Academy Awards people take these films seriously? I guess it doesn't matter when the results shine through the ensuing years as powerfully as "Groundhog Day."