Is time on his side?

Rating: 10/10 (18 January 2006)

Bill Murray has the role of a lifetime as snide weatherman Phil Connors, going to Punxsatawney, Pennsylvania, to cover the groundhog seeing/not seeing its shadow. But after bad weather forces him and his cohorts (Andie MacDowell and Chris Elliott) to stay there, he wakes up the next morning and it's still Groundhog Day! And so is every day after that! To make matters crazier, he's the only one who even notices this! While most movies would probably try to use this premise as an excuse for a bunch of silly gags, "Groundhog Day" uses it to show how Phil changes: he starts out a sour, cynical jerk, and slowly but surely grows more human as the movie passes. That's not to say that the movie doesn't allow for some goofy scenes. Among other things, Phil memorizes every event that's going to happen every day ("I am God! I know everything that's going to happen!"), and he has a really funny encounter with the groundhog in one scene. Harold Ramis created a perfect comedy here.