Dissecting the Classics – Groundhog Day

Welcome to Dissecting the Classics . In this column, I analyze films that are almost universally loved and considered to be great. Why? Because great movies don’t just happen by accident. They connect with initial audiences and they endure for a reason. This column is designed to keep meaningful conversation about these films alive.

Welcome to Dissecting the Classics . In this column, I analyze films that are almost universally loved and considered to be great. Why? Because great movies don’t just happen by accident. They connect with initial audiences and they endure for a reason. This column is designed to keep meaningful conversation about these films alive.

Welcome to Dissecting the Classics . In this column, I analyze films that are almost universally loved and considered to be great. Why? Because great movies don’t just happen by accident. They connect with initial audiences and they endure for a reason. This column is designed to keep meaningful conversation about these films alive.

Welcome to…okay I think you get it.

Groundhog Day

Wide Release Date: February 12, 1993
Directed By: Harold Ramis
Written By: Danny Rubin & Harold Ramis
Produced By: Trevor Albert & Harold Ramis
Cinematography By: John Bailey
Edited By: Pembroke J. Herring
Music By: George Fenton
Distributed By: Columbia Pictures
Starring:
Bill Murray as Phil Connors
Andie McDowell as Rita Hanson

What Do We All Know?

Groundhog Day is perhaps the most unassuming great movie of the 1990s. Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis had a story idea, got a great performer for the lead role, and quietly made one of the best movies of the decade. While a solid hit upon release, the film’s legacy has grown in esteem ever since, and has been the subject of much analysis about the spiritual and philosophical ideas it explores. Clearly, it’s not just a run of the mill comedy. Most comedies don’t place in the AFI’s Top Ten Fantasy Films or get selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Those with long memories probably won’t recall that my first experience with the film was as the subject for From Under a Rock. My good friend Michael Ornelas introduced me to it, and even though I gave the film an A+ at the time, I can tell I wasn’t as fully enraptured by the movie as I was on this viewing. Fittingly, it took a repeat viewing to really fall in love with it, and I’m glad I chose to revisit it here.

What Went Right?

The first thing that goes right about Groundhog Day is its killer premise. If for some reason you’ve gotten this far and either haven’t watched the movie or at least heard of it, the basic plot of the film is that jerkass weatherman Phil Connors gets stuck in a time loop, constantly reliving February 2nd in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. His actions have no consequences on tomorrow, because tomorrow never comes. At first the set up allows for comedy as Phil reacts to the same events in new ways and learns to abuse his situation in order to entertain himself. The humor gets pretty dark as Phil realizes he can’t even suicide his way out of the loop. From start to finish, the film is a riot thanks to a near infinite amount of punch lines to the same basic setup.

And if all Groundhog Day wanted to do was make us laugh, it will probably still be considered to be a good movie. But what makes it a great and beloved movie is that it’s main focus is actually in the drama of Phil’s character arc. Writer Danny Rubin came up with the premise of a man who is immortal, and wanted to make Phil the kind of unlikable, self-centered egomaniac that could never change over the course of one life time. But if forced to live for years doing the same thing, when acting in his self-interest only leads to boredom, what does he do? The best example of this is how the story of Phil’s romantic interest in Rita plays out. At first he tries to use his situation to learn as much about what Rita likes in order to manipulate her into falling in love with him, but Rita never will because of his fatal flaw: the fact that he only cares about himself.

As Michael poetically described in that review I linked to, the film’s big conceit is that Phil sees his shadow and is stuck in a very long winter. The parallel between Phil and the groundhog is made pretty clear; they share a name, and the first time Phil dies is when he drives his car off the road with the groundhog in tow. In order to get out of his purgatory, Phil has to see the light side of things and become a better person, which he eventually does. In truth, it’s the unpreventable death of a homeless man that truly spurs on the change in his character. When Phil realizes that he can use his near omnipotent knowledge of the events to make the day better for everyone and not just himself, he becomes a person who Rita can truly fall in love with and who is able to escape the time loop.

This is just a hell of a story anyway you slice it, but the x-factor is in who is telling the story. Harold Ramis was a seasoned comedy director by 1993, and the difference in polish between this and his earlier works like Caddyshack and Vacation are evident. Not so much in the actual laughs, but in the filmmaking around it. This is a tighter script and also far more ambitious than those films. But the real secret weapon is Bill Murray. If you want a comedian who will nail every single joke, you call Bill Murray. If you also want that comedian to be effective in more heartfelt, dramatic moments, you can’t do any better. This might be Murray’s all-around best performance, showcasing both his uncanny comedic talent and his ability to play a compelling character.

What Went Wrong?

Alright, so I’m not going to claim that the movie is perfect. But really, this is about as close as it gets. If there is a meaningful flaw or a missed opportunity in Groundhog Day, I can’t spot it. Feel free to point it out if you’ve watched the film over and over and over and over and over and over and…

And In Summary…

Groundhog Day was well-received in its own time, with some calling it the best comedy in over a decade. But a quarter of a century later, after many, many repeat viewings, it’s clear that Harold Ramis’ film is more than just a great comedy. It’s a genuinely great movie with a gangbusters premise that it explores in full. Comedy and drama are intertwined and used to great effect, and the result is a film that feels like something Frank Capra might have made. It holds up to the tightest scrutiny, it has barely aged, and it is worth seeing countless times. It’s the true definition of a modern classic.

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Jurassic Park, Back to the Future, Chinatown, Taxi Driver, The Matrix, Batman (1989), Casablanca, Goldfinger, X2, King Kong (1933), Beauty and the Beast (1991), The Dark Crystal, The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Godfather, The Godfather, Part II, The Silence of the Lambs, Alien, Aliens, Casino Royale, Superman: The Movie, Superman II, Batman (1966), The Maltese Falcon, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, 12 Angry Men, Aladdin, The Wizard of Oz, Dial M For Murder, Godzilla (1954), The Hurt Locker, The Breakfast Club, Iron Man, The Shining, Dr. Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange, Eyes Wide Shut, Blade Runner, Rosemary’s Baby, Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Princess Bride, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Toy Story, Star Wars – Part 1, Star Wars – Part 2, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, Die Hard, Spirited Away, Airplane!, Dirty Dancing, RoboCop, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Captain America: The First Avenger, In the Heat of the Night, West Side Story, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Rocky, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Sixth Sense, The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Clerks, Goodfellas, The Avengers, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, Frozen, Jaws, The Omen, The Incredibles, Life of Brian, Escape From New York, Independence Day, Vacation, Ghostbusters, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Hook, Men in Black, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Double Indemnity, Lethal Weapon, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, No Country for Old Men, The Exorcist, Psycho, Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Haunting, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King, Citizen Kane, Mary Poppins, Christmas Vacation, The Iron Giant, The Secret of NIMH, Duck Soup, Unbreakable, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Fight Club

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