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Groundhog Day – The ultra ultra cult movie of them all, hilarious in its repetition and subtle in its grand ideas, plus it’s a tour-de-force performance by Bill Murray, as he’s in nearly every scene, always convincing, always inventive, and constantly hilarious; there’s really no other film quite like it.
The premise is well known – a bitter and sarcastic (“I peg you as a ‘glass is half empty’ kind of guy”) man is doomed to repeat the same mundane day over and over again, from the time hear is woken up at 6:00 AM to the sounds of the clock radio setting off “I Got You Babe”, to the time he fall asleep at night. Repetition like that should lead to a film losing steam, but this one never really does. In fact, it just gets funnier and funnier. “I am a god. Not the God… I don’t think…” Phil Conners and Ned Ryerson… my son and I relive those reunions again and again and again… Buying insurance, seeing old man dying night after night and helpless to save him, sexual conquests, bank robberies, ice sculptures. “It was the end of a very long day,” and “What if there isn’t a tomorrow… there wasn’t one today,” and “My years are not advancing as fast as you think.”
Do you ever get deja vu?
Didn’t you just ask me that?
What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same and nothing that you anyone does matters.
That sums it up for me.
Quotes (and situations) like that have led the term “groundhog day” to be applied to situations where someone is stuck in one place and every day is exactly the same and nothing that you did mattered. Although, at least in the movie, groundhog day means going from being a prisoner of a time and place to becoming the master of that time and place.
There are plenty of bonus features, including a nice six-minute documentary on marmites. Among the outtakes there’s a wicked billiards scene, where Phil predicts every move: “Hey mister, are you some kind of hustler.” “No… GOSH, no!!!” There’s also a great interview, albeit a short one, with director Harold Ramis, who was nicknamed “The Rabbi” by an ex-wife for always trying to win everyone over.” Apparently, Scooter the groundhog did bite a chunk out of Bill Murray’s hand. They had considered Tom Hanks for the role, although he is not as unpredictable as Murray, you never knew if he would be good or bad…