Groundhog Day

Rating: Null/10 (11 November 2012)

"Well, it's Groundhog Dayagain" Harold Ramis' existential romantic comedy/fantasy begs the question, "What could/would/should you do if you had an eternity to do it?" Bill Murray's character tries just about everything, only to find fulfillment in making every moment count. He plays Phil Connors, a weatherman who finds himself caught in a time warp, where he relives the same day over and over again. In a sense, Groundhog Day is the opposite of those movies premised on a character who has lost his/her long term memory (e.g., Memento, 50 First Dates). In those movies, the main character is unable to remember anything that happens from day to day, while everyone and everything else persists as usual. In Groundhog Day, Phil's memory—more specifically, his mental memory—and only his memory—persists from day to day, while the memories of everyone else and the "memory" of the physical world—including that portion of it that Phil's body occupies—are reset every morning at precisely 6:00 A.M. So, he is able to pig out on donuts without gaining weight, commit crimes without serving long-term sentences, and commit suicide without losing his life. No matter what he does or what happens to him during each day, he wakes up in the same physical condition in the same bed in the same bed and breakfast in Pennsylvania, where he is stranded by a blizzard and expected to report on the findings of Punxsutawney Phil, the famous groundhog who predicts the weather with his shadow. At the outset, Phil Connors is a shadow of the man he could be: successful and intelligent, but cynical, self-centered, inconsiderate, and nearly anti-social. He is ahead of himself, using the people and events of the moment as stepping stones to a better potential future that he views as being more worthy of himself. His repetitive predicament forces him to be alive in the moment, because the future is out of his reach. At first, he is simply unnerved by his situation, but as time goes on (or continues not to) he discovers the advantages he can gain by acquiring knowledge, while the people in his world leave each Groundhog Day behind. He robs a bank truck by being able to predict the precise moment when a guard loses focus. He learns the details and preferences of the women in his world so that he can successfully woo them. He starts out as the guy every guy wants to be: egotistical, insensitive, and able to breeze by on blind ambition. His gradual omniscience enables him to trick his producer, Rita (Andie MacDowell) into falling for him, but to make it stick, he will eventually have to use his unlimited time to become the man every woman wants—the man he knows Rita deserves. Danny Rubin's script does a brilliant job of exploring the strange specificity of a human moment. So, although Phil can use his knowledge of the day to reliably change certain events for the better (like breaking a boy's fall from a tree or saving a man from choking), other events (like the death of the homeless man) are unalterably overpowered by fate, and others (like that first moment when Rita genuinely falls for him) can't be recreated, despite hundreds, perhaps thousands of attempts. Murray's acting performance is remarkable both for the entertainment value it confers and the difficult challenges it handily overcomes. Not only does he have to act a version of a scene as if it had never happened before, but then he has to act another version of that same scene as if he is acting (to Rita) as if he hadn't been there before, with a subtle wink to us that reminds us that he had. Andie MacDowell's acting challenge is slightly different, but just as formidable, and her performance is just as remarkable. She has to act each version of a scene as if she had never been there before, but with slight variations depending on how genuine Phil's advances come off and how much he has told her (and how much she believes) about his situation. Harold Ramis can probably be credited for allowing the material enough wiggle room to examine various facets of time and existence, without ever letting it foray into irreversible darkness. Groundhog Day is light, clever, touching, and funny throughout. In fact, it's so good, you'll want to relive it again and again and again and again