A Surprise and a Delight

Rating: 10/10 (28 December 2003)

Despite having read the reviews, I just wasn't ready for what a delight this film was. I'm normally not a fan of the "smarmy" school of humor that's so popular with the original bunch of Saturday Night Live alums: Chase, Belushi, Murray, et al. The "humor" in their characters all too often consists of them being "cooler" than the rest of the world, and laughing at those less "cool". And if you want to be "cool", too, you'd better laugh with them. It's humor as high school clique. Of the lot of them, I've always found Bill Murray to be the most tolerable; but even he rode the edge of my tolerance.
But in this film, that's the point! Murray starts out as EXACTLY the smarmy character who annoys me so much; and because of who he is, he can't quite get his life to work out right. But through a little bit of Twilight Zone logic, he keeps getting chances to do it right. What seems like a curse at first -- repeating the same day over and over -- turns into an opportunity for him to grow as a character and as a human being.
At the end, the smarm is still there; but it's turned inward, and becomes more self deprecating. Murray's character no longer views himself as the cool outsider, laughing at all the rubes. Instead, he joins the rubes -- the human race -- and laughs at life and love and himself. This transformation seems very natural, and makes for an irresistible film.