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The Appropriate Tune: "Every Day Is A Holiday", by DOPE LEMON (feat. Winston Surfshirt)
There are a myriad of Christmas movies. There are movies about Halloween, Thanksgiving, the Fourth of July and St. Patrick’s Day, and there’s probably a movie or two involving Hanukkah somewhere in the vast depths of the cinematic trenches, besides that one Rugrats TV special. As far as I know though there is only one movie about that most sacred of holidays, the day that everyone waits for with bated breath and girded loins: Groundhog Day. Maybe it’s because I saw a video on youtube showing off Groundhog Day 2, the official sequel in VR game form, but suddenly I felt an urge to return to this movie that I believe I watched over a decade ago. Unfortunately this meant that the film that originally occupied this space had to go, a little something by the Coen Bros. if you’re curious, but this blog being what it is there’s no doubt we’ll be seeing them again sometime in the future. Unless we get stuck in a time loop, I guess.
Released in 1993 through Columbia Pictures, Groundhog Day was directed and co-written by Harold Ramis (who you might know from Animal House, Meatballs, Caddyshack, Ghostbusters and about a dozen other things) and Danny Rubin (who you might know from...well, pretty much just Groundhog Day). Bill Murray stars as Phil Connors, a narcissistic and mordant weatherman for a Pittsburgh news station who along with his producer Rita (Andie MacDowell) and cameraman Larry (Chris Elliott) who travel to the town of Punxsutawney to cover the Groundhog Day festival and to see whether Punxsutawney Phil, the titular hog, will see his shadow and thus damn the world to six more weeks of winter. The day doesn’t go well; Phil hates Punxsutawney, hates the people, hates the festival and that damn hog and he’s not exactly subtle about it, much to Rita’s chagrin. Were it not for a surprise blizzard shutting down roads and phone lines he would be out of there like that (insert finger snapping here), and when he goes to bed that night he swears that tomorrow will be the last day he ever sets eyes on Punxsutawney again.
Only tomorrow never comes. When the clock hits six Phil Connors awakes to find that is once again Groundhog Day; The same song on the radio, the same people at the same places, and when he goes to bed the clock strikes six and it all happens again. At first Phil is rather pleased, reveling in his newfound freedom from consequences to indulge in all manner of vices, as well as try to get inside the pants of Rita. That sense of satisfaction quickly turns sour however, and not just because Rita rejects him at every turn. When you know that anything and everything you do will be wiped away by the next day, when you know everything that will happen because you’ve seen it happen again and again and again. How does a man cope with eternity? If he crumbles, can he put himself back together again? Better figure it out soon, it’s Groundhog Day tomorrow.
Harold Ramis had primarily been a writer at this point in his film career, as I mentioned earlier, and we know what he liked to do as writer: Dry wit, screwball comedy, characters that are smarter than anyone else in the room. All or which is still present, but this collaboration with Danny Rubin has introduced an emotional core that had heretofore never really been present in a Ramis film. Groundhog Day is funny, sure, goofy even at times, but there also times when it’s not funny at all. When it is fact serious, either in a positive way (Phil’s budding relationship with Rita) or negative (Phil’s spiral into rock bottom), and indeed in its overarching existential theme of finding meaning in one’s life and in our relationship with other people. Had things tipped more towards Animal House it wouldn’t have worked, it’s the humanistic element that makes it.
Who better to exemplify that balance than Bill Murray? Seriously, I can’t think of many comic actors that go from detestable to lovable in as few steps as Murray. He takes a quarter step back and he immediately goes from a guy you wouldn’t piss on if he were on fire to a guy you’d want giving the toast at your wedding. I’d even go as far as suggest that it was this film, rather than The Razor’s Edge almost a decade earlier that really redefined Bill Murray as an actor. He went in the Bill Murray of Saturday Night Live and Ghostbusters and out came Bill Murray of Lost in Translation and Rushmore.
He is supported by a great cast. No big names, but they’re unique and, like Phil, seeing them over and over again really inures you to them. I could see the argument that Rita doesn’t stand out enough as a character to be the female lead in a romance story, and you could probably debate the logic of a woman falling heads over heels for a guy that she previously thought was a chode in less than 24 hours, but she certainly looks the kind of woman you’d spend an infinite amount of the exact same day trying to get close to her. It’s a bit strange seeing Chris Elliott playing a character so down-to-earth as well, but I honestly forgot he was in this movie from the last time I watched it so it was a nice surprise.
Groundhog Day is one of those movies that is so ubiquitous at this point that recommending it is probably unneeded, so I’m going to recommend it anyway. It’s an interesting premise that is properly explored and pushes a worthwhile message, seasoned with gallows humor, and served with a romcom. A ‘feelgood’ movie if ever there was one. If you’re interested digging into that Second City/SNL oeuvre this probably wouldn’t be the movie I’d lead with, but it would definitely fit into the must-see category. Doesn’t even have to be on Halloween, just make a holiday of it some day. Unless we get stuck in a time loop, I guess.
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