Apologies for the delays, this should have been up a couple days ago but the week sort of blended together. In all complete honesty, a great deal of personal matters (and mounds of snow seemingly pouring on the Northeast every other hour) has made it feel like the same day over and over lately. Such an environment can make it hard to feel as inspired to pull different angles and means of using the electronic pen, so to speak. So in order to get out of the rut, maybe this film can serve as the perfect antidote for such a block.
DAY 13 – GROUNDHOG DAY
OK, I know what people expect with this sort of film, especially considering it pairs Bill Murray with director Harold Ramis. But even though it is classified as a comedy…it is not really a comedy in the way you expect. This is more of a dramatic morality play (with circumstance-centered chuckles) than anything else, with a formula insightful enough to be justly emulated (way too often) by TV shows and recent films looking for an existential edge.
The story follows egotistical cynic Phil Connors (Bill Murray), who has clearly fallen on the “apathetic” side of the “Hates Where He Is” scale as the TV weatherman for Pittsburgh affiliate WPBH-TV9. With an optimistic news producer named Rita (Andie MacDowell) and cameraman Larry (Chris Elliott), Connors takes a sadly-too-familiar expedition to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to see if the buck-toothed Phil sees his shadow. (Spolier alert: His choice then matches this year, déjà vu indeed.) And sour-mouthed Phil proceeds to alienate and disregard everything about the small town (and his colleagues in the process), even as a storm – one he did not predict properly – keeps them there for one more night. From that point on, Mr. Connors wakes up every day at 6 AM to find it is February 2 again…with no one else noticing or acting differently, except when Phil’s actions affect them. And Phil takes every route possible: he uses his eventual foreknowledge to manipulate, goes on a criminal spree, and eventually milks his limitless time to accumulate knowledge and…chances to flirt effectively. Think of it as “Dragon’s Lair” on film, where he memorizes every move in order to (someday) get all the way through the game of “February 2nd”…and gradually, as he gets better at handling the day, his personality begins to change on a level that may last when tomorrow finally hits.
You can tell that Harold Ramis absolutely knew how to bottle Bill Murray’s charisma, using the angles and stable shooting style in every scene to keep the focus on his comrade’s naturally compelling personality carry audiences through the scenes. And Murray does quite well with it here, managing to make us interested in “human Phil” even when he is completely grating in the film’s beginning. I am not sure what it is about Murray that works…but when he acts so deadpan, almost like he doesn’t care who is watching or finds him funny, he naturally draws laughs out of you. I guess you could say he is the antithesis to Jim Carrey (not to necessarily criticize Carrey, though), in that his positive effect on a film is directly proportional to how understated he makes himself…and that way, we can relate to him more. His co-stars compliment his strengths well, with Andie MacDowell playing Rita as a supremely warm and loving person without seeming too saint-like (i.e. she has her limits of what she’ll put up with), while Chris Elliott, as Larry, comes across as a cameraman who will take events (like his equipment, I guess) as they come, for better or for worse…but very excited when something (or someone) is more enjoyable.
In terms of critical comments, I don’t have as much to say except…well, even as Phil Connors relives the same day over and over again, it is not really laugh-out-loud funny. The repetition of scenes works pretty well, highlighting the townspeople more and making the variations more noteworthy…but is it rib-busting? You notice with a smile how long it takes Phil to discover and properly regard the woman of his dreams, even as she never remembers her prior conversations with him…but does it leave you cracking up? (Although it is clever that sometimes her lack of memory is a GOOD thing; so take a lesson, Adam Sandler, this is how 50 First Dates should have been.) My answers would be…no and no. Most of the laughs in here are spaced out and are more subtle, in a way that is hard to explain. Maybe it is because once you see the same day’s events repeated over and over, you can enjoy the absurdity of the character…but not as much with the scene. So as a comedy, it is not my favorite because it felt similar to playing a song too many times.
Now, as an existential drama, I enjoyed it a great deal. It really is brilliant in that regard because it so awesomely reflects not only how we would act in a similar scenario, but also how we tend to act now. In mean, think about what you do to try really making the most out of the present. Some of us focus on just avoiding the same mistakes (insert water puddle joke here). Others of us tend to feel less motivated by how repetitive days seem, either becoming extremely lethargic or seeking a more destructive (or at least more reckless) outlet as an escape. And maybe some of us even dwell to a fault on getting to the future too quickly. But maybe like with Bill Murray’s character, part of the lesson of moving forward involves just choosing to be happy with where you are in the present, future be damned. I guess that is a little too preachy-sounding, but Groundhog Day made that point without pretension, so I guess cinema’s “Dragon’s Lair” gets bonus points for that too.
Score:
TOMORROW (DAY 14): RUDY
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