Bill Murray...

Rating: 6/10 (8 March 2011)

Bill Murray gives his usual turn of deadpan comedy in this time-trap feature.
Sent once too often on an annual pilgrimage into unpronounceable small-town isolation, he finally begins cracking-up. The job is really beneath his dignity. He quite rightly hates the assignment, and makes no secret of the fact.
However, next morning his problems really set in. Instead of being elsewhen, he wakes-up in the same bed, in the same guesthouse, to the same music playing on the radio. It's Sonny & Cher's 'I've got you, babe.' And every subsequent morning is the same. It's Groundhog Day - for ever. First, there's shock and disbelief, but later wretched resignation. His suicide attempts count for nothing; there really is no escape. He can do and say whatever he likes, everything's the same next morning. I've got you, babe.
The tale is a 'journey of discovery'. Sadly, it is over-over simplified into a romantic theme. In effect, he's not a very nice person (who is?) and - rather like Scrooge (who he has also played) - must remedy his vices in order to move on.
Basically, the acid-test of rehabilitation will be his ability to get his assistant - here played by Andie MacDowell - into bed. It will be an uphill struggle. In due course he begins putting his time to constructive use, learning the piano, ice-sculpture, and of course - decency.
Much as I like many elements of this movie - Murray's poker-faced one-line gag delivery is perfectly timed - it contains a slightly insidious anti-male theme that invariably leaves a sour taste. Murray's character is a fairly ordinary guy with ordinary vices. He is certainly no worse than his assistant. When asked what kind of man would meet her preference, about the only virtue she omits to stipulate is the colour of her imaginary paragon's halo. Yet she herself hardly matches those aspirations, and we infer that being female she has no need to. It is this entrenched judgementalism of maleness - especially by a female who possesses no especial merits herself - that I find so inherently sexist. Why should he have to be a diplomat, doctor, professional pianist, ice-sculptor, etc just to win the preference of a comparatively ordinary woman? Why should the selection-procedure be so one-sided and severe?
This misandric undertow is what ultimately mars my full enjoyment of the movie. It's sly, and its very funny; but it's too simplistic in its denouement, and I'm just a little tired of seeing men put on the rack for no other reason than being male.