This is a piece I wrote several years ago, and I still feel the same way. What do you think?
Can Groundhog Day, that little made-up holiday that distracts us from the long haul of winter, become as big as Christmas? Okay, maybe not, but I’m making the case that Groundhog Day , the movie, should become the It’s a Wonderful Life of this generation. I want families to gather round on Groundhog Day and watch this movie together, just like It’s a Wonderful Life has become the Christmas tradition. This movie evokes the same deep feelings, shows the same possibility of transformation through love, only while Frank Capra did it with sincerity and angels, Harold Ramis does it with humor, cynicism and Bill Murray.
It was easy to dismiss this movie when it first came out in 1993 as just another in the long line of silly movies Ramis and Murray had done together (like Caddyshack and Ghostbusters). But the screenplay by Danny Rubin is actually addressing something much deeper. He does it so effectively, and addresses our modern, existential, God-suspicious existence so subtly that some might not even be aware of it. Those out on the spiritual frontlines have noticed though. Ramis says he’s gotten mail from “every known religious organization and discipline, from yogi’s, Hasidic Jews, Jesuits, psychoanaylsts” claiming this movie’s message “perfectly expresses our philosophy.” And the message holds up
No one embodies the modern I’m-smarter-than-you cynic who’s always out for himself better than Bill Murray. And it takes someone with his attitude and comic genius to make this premise work, and help us modern cynics find the meaning of life in our world today, by showing us how to literally live life “one day at a time.” Who would have thought that he would become the Jimmy Stewart of our time?
In It’s a Wonderful Life we got to see how one man’s dreams keep getting postponed but he naturally does good in spite of himself. In a crisis, he feels life is not worth living. He gets his wish. He sees what it would be like if he’d never been born. Only then can he see how many lives he’s touched, how many people he helped, all from his small home town. It never fails to make us cry, because we realize that our ordinary lives are worth living too.
Groundhog Day has a different premise. Here we see one guy who is stuck in what to him is the worst day of his life, putting up with stupid inferior people in a small town. He thinks it’s hoakey, and people who are optimists are stupid too. Phil is mean and cruel in a casually off-hand way, only thinking of himself and how he can get ahead. He’s a weatherman in Pittsburgh, who has to go make the trip to Punxsatawney to do the Groundhog Day footage. He’s mean to his cameraman (Chris Elliot is good as this nondescript, easy-to-overlook guy) and physically attracted but intellectually repelled by his producer, Rita (Andie McDowell, who’s great at playing the sweet optimist). After spending the night in the bed and breakfast (he refuses to stay in the local hotel), he ignores a homeless man and runs from the boring Ned Ryerson from high school who tries to sell him insurance. He goes through the motions of the broadcast, much to the disgust of his crew, but then they are snowed in by the blizzard he didn’t predict. This is the set up.
The next morning, he wakes up and has to relive the same day. It takes him awhile to realize what’s happening. When he wakes up again on the third day and it’s still the same day, he panics, and tries to get help, but no one else is having the same experience. For them it’s a new day. He thinks about all the really good days he’s had in the past. “Why couldn’t I get that day?” he wonders of a day on a tropical island with a beautiful woman. He sits in the coffee shop with two local yokels and asks without irony, “What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same and nothing you did mattered?” “That about sums it up for me,” one of the yokels replies. This is the situation most people are in today. If every day is the same, what choices do we make, what is our attitude? Are we cynical and smart, not giving money to homeless people, pushing away the obnoxious Ned Ryersons’ of the world, only out for ourselves, mad at God and feeling powerless? This is actually a serious philosophical question. How do you live life one day at a time? The humor and the pathos in this situation come from making it literally one day. Ramos and Rubin explore all sides of it (actually using Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s five stages of dying as the model).
First Phil realizes (as the yokels point out): no consequences! So he eats all he can, doesn’t floss. Tears the town up, has sex with a pretty girl by telling her everything she wants to hear because there is no tomorrow. But eventually even this gets tiring, and he decides to pursue what he really wants: Rita. But his tricks don’t work with her. After he meticulously plans a “perfect day” for her by finding out all her likes and dislikes, she sees through him. “Is this what love is for you?” she asks as he keeps plying her with more and more of her favorite things. “I could never love someone like you Phil, because you can never love anyone but yourself.” “That’s not true,” he responds. “I don’t even like myself.” He gives in to despair. In his next on camera report he says, “It’s going to be cold, it’s going to be gray, and last you for the rest of your life.” He decides to kill himself by stealing the Groundhog and running the truck over the cliff, then by putting a toaster in his bath, by walking in front of a truck, jumping off a building, and many more. But nothing works. Every morning, like clockwork the numbers turn over to 6 am again on his digital clock radio, he hears Sonny & Cher sing “I Got You Babe” again and the same inane chatter from the DJ’s on the radio.
After his suicides fail, he tries a new approach. He levels with Rita. He proves his story is true because he knows everything that will happen. She thinks it’s a trick. “Maybe the real God uses tricks,” he responds. “Maybe he’s not omnipotent, he’s just been around so long he knows everything.” She finally comes to believe him. They sit on the bed in his room flipping cards into a hat. “Is this what you do with eternity, Phil?” she asks him. She admits she’s always wished for a thousand lifetimes. “Maybe it’s not a curse. Maybe it depends on how you look at it.” He has a flip reply. “Gosh, you’re an upbeat lady,” but she’s struck a chord. As he watches her sleep, he admits to himself that he loves her kindness, how nice she is to people. And that although he doesn’t deserve her, he would like to and he would love her the rest of his life.
The next time the clock flips over, Phil’s attitude changes. He gives money to the homeless man. He brings coffee for his crew and asks their opinion. He finds the homeless man having a heart attack and tries to save him. The next (same) day he plies him with food and stays with him, but he still dies. Then he turns himself to doing good for the living and making more of himself. He reads. He learns to play the piano. He makes a magnificent speech out of his piece. And attracts Rita to him. That night he becomes the man of her dreams from the inside, and he has a revelation. “Whatever happens tomorrow, I’m happy now because I love you.” This is the message of Groundhog Day, just as “No man is a failure who has friends” is the message of It’s a Wonderful Life. He’s learned to live in the moment and be satisfied. And as a result, he gets his reward. The curse is ended, and Rita is his. He is so joyful, he decides he wants to stay in Punxsatawney. His first question to Rita is, “Is there anything I can do for you today?”
