In 1993 , director Harold Ramis genius of dark comedies like ’’Analyze This’’ casted Bill Murray as Phil Connors in this dark but mostly enjoyable movie named GroundHog Day.
Bill Murray plays Phil Connors a weatherman, who covers everything from weather to Ground Day. Phil isn’t happy with his life, in fact he realizes that he is repeating the same routine over and over again. From work in the morning, to talking to the annoying Ned Ryanser( Stephen Tobolowsky), while listening to Sonny and Cher in the morning to covering the stupid GroundHog Day, Phil is repeating the same day over and over again. Of course the irony here as done by the plot, is that he is the only that knows it. It’s like an episode the ’’Twilight Zone’’ (which I reviewed too on other sites). Eventually Phil has a mental breakdown in which he plans to do whatever he wants. He comes completely unglued when realizing how wasted his life had become, and thus wants to change it.
I use the term breakdown because well Phil isn’t exactly a nice guy, he’s arrogant
and obnoxious. We hardly sympathize with this guy, much less that he is miserable.
However, the point the movie makes is the guy realizes he has been wasting his life
away and wants to change it, although Phil’s change doesn’t go ahead smoothly.
He drives reckless around the train tracks, gets arrested, steals a bagfull of money from a couple of dumb cops, charms his way into sleeping with a beautiful young girl and yet finds out that he still isn’t happy. Until he puts the moves on Rita (Andy McDowell), his producer. McDowell is the few actresses that I know that has limited acting potential but her beautiful presence can convey some emotions making her sympathetic.
However, in order to get close to Rita, Phil has to get info on her likes and dislikes from her friends. This angle in the movie, really made me a little sick, because even we are suppose to sympathize with Phil, he hasn’t really changed all that much. Rita, eventually finds out Phil’s motives and slaps him in the face, and telling him to get lost. LOL No surprise there, in fact Rita’s action sums up my argument that Phil hasn’t really changed all that much despite his aim to not repeat the same day, he is still repeating his same behavioral patterns.
Phil though in order to impress her and to change himself, starts doing bizarre, yet unreal things that get him attention and he does start to become nicer.
This is where the movie gets ridiculous, because even though this is a comedy, I found the rest of the movie to be predictable, superficial, yet enjoyable
Phil becomes a gifted ice sculpter (who knows where he learned this) as one scene, where his cutting a sculpture of an ice angel is shown. Then Phil saves a guy from choking to death, a kid from a falling tree and a host of other surprises. LOL
Yes Harold Ramis does go a bit over the top with this Phil guy, obviously a lot of the stuff he pulls of is almost impossible giving Phil’s background, but Ramis is again trying to show the point (although laughingly bad) that Phil is changing. He now has a heart and will do anything to be with this nice woman and of course by Phil doing this he has filled that empty void that he had when he was repeating the same unfulling routine of covering that stupid Groundhog Day in Pennsylvania.
Ramis is actually a buddy of Murray going back to the old days of their ’’SCTV’’ days,
and ’’Ghostbusters’’ days, so these two talented comedian can pull the hijinks in the film with some realism.
Still though Ramis does do a good job of making us think about the movie and Phil itself and gives us that scary thought that we perhaps might end up like Phil, a shriveled, ugly man who has been repeating the same stupid routine yet doesn’t have the capacity to see that this misery is at his own doing.
LOL
OffTopic Remark: In a way Phil reminds of the lowlifes I mentioned from this other site, members who harass other members yet still end miserable and thats because they are wasting their lives and reputations away attacking good people without taking a look at their stupid actions and lies.
So definitely check out ’’GroundHog Day’’ now that’s it on dvd with many Special Features it is definitely worth a look!!!
It was a big hit I remember when it came and that’s no surprise again, seeing
as Murray is perhaps the only guy I know that could’ve pulled a role of like this.
Thank you for reading my review.