...has the distinction of being one of the best things Bill Murray has ever starred in.
Tools:
Recommend review to a friend »
Groundhog Day is probably the only U.S. tradition that wasn´t invented by Hallmark Cards. It´s celebrated on February 2, and according to legend it´s the day the groundhog first rises from his winter hibernation. If he sees his shadow, six more weeks of cold weather are supposed to follow. There´s a big celebration every year in the little town of Punxsutawney, PA, apparently the official observation site for this extraordinary mammalian event.
Anyway, the movie "Groundhog Day" is equally extraordinary: a successful romantic-comedy set during the annual groundhog affair. This 1993 fantasy, directed by Harold Ramis, also has the distinction of being one of the best things Bill Murray has ever starred in.
Murray plays one of his proprietary roles, that of a grumpy, sarcastic, egocentric cynic in a fable much in the mold of Dickens´ "A Christmas Carol." He´s Phil Conners, a big-city weatherman out of Pittsburgh, PA, who dreads having to go to a hick burg like Punxsutawney once a year to cover the groundhog doings. What´s more, his producer, Rita (Andie MacDowell), and his cameraman, Larry (Chris Elliott), equally dread having to go with him. No one likes Phil. Not even Phil likes Phil.
Once there, though, he gets stuck in town with a blizzard, and when he awakens the next morning, it´s the same day. It´s February 2 again! At first he just thinks he´s having feelings of deju vu, but he´s really beginning to live the same day over and over again. His cynicism kicks in and he asks, "Well, what if there is no tomorrow? There wasn´t one today." He tries a local medical doctor and a psychologist for help, thinking he may be ill, but to no avail. Then he begins pondering the inevitable, wondering the existential questions of man´s place in an uncaring universe: "What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same, and nothing you did mattered?" Which sums up a whole lot of people´s lives. What if there were no tomorrow? A person could do whatever he wanted with no consequences.
So, he decides to take chances and experiments. He drives an automobile into mailboxes, drives down a railroad track, tries to out race a police car. But no matter what he does, he wakes up in the same bed in the same bed-and-breakfast hotel the next morning. He punches out an annoying old acquaintance, eats anything he wants, asks beautiful women to marry him, knowing full well that it´s going to start from the beginning, all over again, the next day.
Finally, the story gets around to serious business, or as serious as this comedy is going to get, when Phil asks the weighty question, "If you only had one day to live, what would you do with it?" And the plot takes a turn toward the moralistic as well as the romantic. He begins a new pursuit, that of the lovely and sensitive Rita, a regular old-fashioned girl, time after time, and his blossoming interest in her makes up the bulk of the film. As he genuinely tries to learn more about her, Phil learns more about himself and how much he can accomplish in a day, when they´re endless.
Average user rating (1-5):
[release]532[/release]