Funny, full of heart, but lacks the ending you need.

Rating: 8/10 (13 September 2001)

The other comments on this film are, collectively, pretty accurate, I think. Murray plays the role of the witty cynic, who lives the same boring day repeatedly, with charm and a credible mix of belief and disbelief. He was the perfect choice for a part that was probably harder to play than he makes it look. The writing is as good as the acting (almost; see below), moving quickly past the phase where Murray's character comes to terms with what's happening to him (a smart move, since the viewer already knows, and would be bored if it took long on the screen), and on to exploring the various things we might all think of eventually, if caught in the same sort of Twilight-Zonish phenomenon. The results of the "hero's" efforts to cope with his problem are satisfying, as is his personal evolution, brought on by the experience of trying. Only the end, which satisfies the heart, but not the brain, fails to equal the rest of the movie. You never really learn why or how this extraordinary occurrence came to be. The film is a fable, or fairy-tale, yet its events are so logically presented, and Murray's ways of dealing with and, finally, gaining by them so grounded in reason that the absence of any explanation leaves a hole in the story and, ultimately, your experience in seeing the film. This would be a four-star movie, if only they'd filled that gap.