Comedy or Drama?

Rating: 9/10 (20 February 2011)

Groundhog Day is more than just a classic Bill Murray movie. It pretty much defined the 1990s for me. Harold Ramis is a comedic genius and Murray delivers comedy like no other actor before or after his prime. This is their masterpiece.
I've seen Ghostbusters, and I still believe it is inferior to Groundhog Day. I've recently rewatched the film and read over some trivia to find that Murray and Ramis argued over the film's genre of being a comedy or a drama for years. I can't say which one for sure, but I certainly find it funny and it is a drama, for sure.
Groundhog follows weatherman Phil Connors (Murray) and his new producer Rita (Andie MacDowell) and his cameraman Larry (Chris Elliott) to Punxsutawney as he covers the groundhog festival. After his first report, Phil wakes up to February 2, again and finds that he is repeating the day over and over.
It's beyond genius to make a movie about this. First of all, this is very easy to produce for the costume designer. It's the same clothes all the time! That is an easy cut of costs, and much like Back to the Future, the location remains the same essentially...so the production designer and location scouter needs not as much. It's also very interesting of an idea to actually make a movie about this sort of deja vu phenomenon.
I think what makes me like this film most of all, is the amount of change that happens to Phil over the course of the film. This kind of 'hell' can shape a person from an unrelenting, unloving, uncaring, broken, incomplete shell of a man to a warm, kind-hearted, loving and peaceful soul. It's genuinely inspirational while being dramatic, funny, and romantic.
There's not much mature themes or scenes that make this too unsuitable for children. But, maybe that's because I was young when I first saw this and I'd already been watching things like Seinfeld, Fraiser, Friends and horror movies like The Shining. It's still one of the greats, for me, and I think it's a classic that no one should miss.