A brilliant idea for a movie - executed very well

Rating: 7/10 (4 May 2016)

Phil is a bitter, egocentric weatherman who treats his co-workers and the public in general with sarcastic contempt. He joylessly travels to the remote town of Punxsutawney to carry out an annual assignment that he particularly dislikes - the Groundhog Day. While here, he inexplicably he wakes every morning thereafter to live the same day over and over again but with the freewill to act it out newly as he sees fit. In reliving the same day he moves from exploiting his unique position in order to use people to his advantage and onto a position where he begins to care more about these people and acts like a less self-centred individual.
Groundhog Day is pretty clearly a high concept movie, i.e. a film whose premise you could describe in one sentence. Consequently, high concept movies don't tend to have the best of reputations as great cinema. But, it has to be said, that Groundhog Day is a very good example of a film that makes the most of a very straightforward premise. The format is deceptively simple but it allows for a lot of scope for lots of comedy as well as some well observed pathos. Such a simple idea but such a brilliant one. But what makes it hit an even higher level is the performance of Bill Murray in the central role. This is essentially a vehicle for his brand of acerbic comedy and its hard thinking of anyone else playing his part, he is so well suited to it and so effortless at playing it. It's certainly rare for a film to remain so funny after a couple of decades and the best bits of this one are still highly amusing but it also has a good deal of wisdom too. It maybe sometimes overplays the sentimentality in its final third but it can be forgiven for this on account of the many things it gets right elsewhere.