Groundhog Day



Groundhog Day is about a cynical reporter somehow (it's never explained) gets caught in a never ending loop of time, going through the same day over and over again. During this time, he gets depressed, bored, angry in turns, being even more nasty to those around him, or using this unique circumstance to find out about the people he has to interact with, and try and exploit this knowledge (to seduce women, for example). In fact, sometimes it may appear he is actually in some sort of hell of his own making.

Gradually he learns to accept what his happening, and tries to help people - but sometimes even this proves impossible (he helps an old tramp, spends some time with him, but before the day's out, the old fellow dies anyway).

He gradually stops doing superficial stuff, and starts to actually do something positive with all this time on his hands, and tries to use it in a less superficial or selfish way. He learns the piano for example, and uses this new skill to entertain at a party. He takes time to help people, (stopping a kid hurting or even killing himself for example) knowing it's pointless anyway as the next day it all starts again. (There's speculation about how long this really is, it could be 10 years, it could be 100 years, it could be 10,000 years - it's just not clear). Through all this, he comes to understand himself better, and release and enjoy the nice side of himself, falling in love (not just lust) with the leading lady.


This sounds very prissy, but here is a great story, great script and perfect comedy acting all rolled up. It's one of those films that transcends grouping - not just a comedy, not just a drama, not just a romance, and it works well on every level.

There are depths to this film, and like many great films, you get out of it what you want to, and what you are willing to take.


5/5

Nice, DB. It's a great movie.

love that movie

good movie but its most peoples day. just repeating the same things over and over.

I could watch this movie over and over again for eternity! In fact I think I will.

I noticed last night (2/2) that one of my channels was playing this continuously throughout the day. Nice touch.

- Playstation VR game was just announced "Groundhog Day: Like Father, Like Son", where you play Phil Jr. caught in a loop. There's a trailer. Doesn't look promising to me but idk. I would probably be into a sequel in general.

- I wrote about it in the main movie thread a few weeks ago after seeing it again in theater. It was part of a "Big Screen Science" series where they talked about the "science" for a few minutes afterwards. In this case that didn't involve quantum physics nonsense, just weather patterns and biology of groundhogs etc.

- The groundhog usually says winter will stay, and the groundhog is usually wrong. Flipping a coin would give better odds, and just picking "didn't see shadow" would make you right most of the time. "Early spring" is more likely than not.

- Portraying the way he almost wins her over in the mid-movie as anything even close to "romantic" is bad and weird. There's a way to do it, maybe, where it's him indulging id with eternity to spare and no consequences, but it doesn't quite come off that way (some of the time it does).

- Portraying things like carving an ice sculpture face of your co-worker/boss and telling her you love her on the first date as romantic and admirable is moronic.

- This is all typical of pre-00s movies.

- There's a better movie in there somewhere where it doesn't have to involve a one-day romance/seduction.

- Movie is still really good.

Hmmmmmm... Always works for me.

There's something about the way he delivers the line "what" after shoving the angel food cake in his mouth(40 sec) that gets me every time.

Loved this movie when I saw it a kid. Watched it ten years later and still liked it a lot, agree that it’s a classic and great film

Also, Baltimore’s critique is valid, but I also think having some sort of love interest was probably necessary to give the movie mainstream appeal and allow the scriptwriters to have something to focus on and wrap up the movie with

It is a fun movie. And I have always had a thing for Andie MacDowell. Hubba hubba....

Groundhog Day is about a cynical reporter somehow (it's never explained) gets caught in a never ending loop of time, going through the same day over and over again. During this time, he gets depressed, bored, angry in turns, being even more nasty to those around him, or using this unique circumstance to find out about the people he has to interact with, and try and exploit this knowledge (to seduce women, for example). In fact, sometimes it may appear he is actually in some sort of hell of his own making.

Gradually he learns to accept what his happening, and tries to help people - but sometimes even this proves impossible (he helps an old tramp, spends some time with him, but before the day's out, the old fellow dies anyway).

He gradually stops doing superficial stuff, and starts to actually do something positive with all this time on his hands, and tries to use it in a less superficial or selfish way. He learns the piano for example, and uses this new skill to entertain at a party. He takes time to help people, (stopping a kid hurting or even killing himself for example) knowing it's pointless anyway as the next day it all starts again. (There's speculation about how long this really is, it could be 10 years, it could be 100 years, it could be 10,000 years - it's just not clear). Through all this, he comes to understand himself better, and release and enjoy the nice side of himself, falling in love (not just lust) with the leading lady.


This sounds very prissy, but here is a great story, great script and perfect comedy acting all rolled up. It's one of those films that transcends grouping - not just a comedy, not just a drama, not just a romance, and it works well on every level.

There are depths to this film, and like many great films, you get out of it what you want to, and what you are willing to take.


5/5

Agree; a great film and also one of Bill Murray’s best performances.