Questions for Your Second Viewing of: Groundhog Day (1993)
Phil, the groundhog vs. Phil, the weatherman
Harold Ramis’ Groundhog Day (1993) seems to be all about grasping — grasping control, order, and mastery over redundancy. Protagonist, Phil (Bill Murray), is just an egotistical weatherman fed up with the yearly humdrum of Groundhog Day festivities before he becomes the victim of his own humdrum existence — in relentless repetition. We watch Phil grapple with reliving the same day over and over again, each time with a different approach. Throughout his evolution, we can’t help but wonder, is Phil gaining true control over his circumstance, or is he simply giving into it?
1. Basking in mastery
Let’s try to look at the different forms of “mastery” Phil demonstrates by dividing Ramis’ film into thirds. The first third is not surprisingly all about Phil’s feeling utterly perplexed — the “why am I reliving the same day over and over again?” gets absorbed pretty quickly. Once he accepts the fact that all his day’ll do is repeat repeat repeat, he has no trouble making out with the housekeeper at his hotel for no reason, punching Ned, the salesman, in the face, and making fun of everybody anticipating a tomorrow that only he knows won’t come. In the first third of the film, Phil assumes control and power in the predictability of his circumstance, and egotistically so, in much the same way he finds pleasure in championing a fortune-teller-like supremacy as a weatherman. In this first third, he basks in mastery.
2. Giving up on mastery
The second third of the film takes an inevitably harsh turn. Cornered by the dizzying over-and-over that has become his life, Phil gives into the misery of redundancy. How? By attempting suicide — he gives into an ultimate and bleak mastery of life precisely by trying to end it. These suicides are curiously casual, though, as Rita (Andie MacDowell) and Larry (Chris Elliot) observe some of his attempts with eerie humor: “he might be okay,” Larry says, as he looks down at a Phil’s crashed car that bursts into flames. The overt nonchalance of Groundhog Day’s suicides not only punctuates the otherwise predictable narrative with unpredictability, but it also comments on the greatest impossibility of cinema: capturing death. The blaséness with which these serialized deaths are painted reflects a satirical rendering of cinema’s attempt at filming the one experience that neither it nor we can experience. All this is a huge ode to the self-awareness of the film’s increasingly exaggerated satire — the further we progress through it, the more ridiculous it gets. And with each iteration, a bit of Phil is chipped away for better and for worse.
3. How to master life
The final portion of Ramis’ film depicts Phil’s endeavoring to restore life and justice in his surroundings — we see Phil’s mastery over altruism and sincerity. In light of his realizing that his love for Rita is more than just a phase, he also realizes that he wants to use his daily loops to better his world — he helps a homeless man find shelter, genuinely enjoys the presence of Ned, the salesman, and even decides to learn how to play the piano. Whether this final sequence works to refute Phil’s prior egotism is totally up for the viewers to decide, but what’s clear is that Phil’s changed his ways, and as a result, he not only gets the girl of his dreams, but he also gets his life back — in linearity.
Ultimately, Groundhog Day leaves us with many iterations of the most obvious question: “why?” Why did these loops occur, and what do they mean? Why does Phil go through this?
Anchors in monotony: small festivities
But most importantly, it situates this question around the idea of monotonous, capitalist life: here we are again, celebrating a yearly festivity and broadcasting it for all of America to see, just to nail down some anchors of meaning onto our otherwise stale calendar years — here’s another Groundhog Day, so we can look forward to the end of a bleak winter. But it’s by relentlessly repeating this day, a day Phil doesn’t quite like in this town he definitely doesn’t like, that Ramis creates a cruel site for Phil to finally gain a sense of control in life— here’s some mastery over life but you only get this one day in your life, over and over again, haha.
It’s precisely in this hilarious cruelty that Phil is able to work towards self-growth. With these loops, Phil is allowed ample space and time to grapple with his feelings for Rita — he’s given the power to think about his work versus his pursuit of love and to ultimately decide what and who he wants the most: love and Rita. And in the end, he’s left appreciating not just the linearity of life, but also the banalities of it — things he’d previously not been able to see for what they’re worth, much less appreciate.
By showing us what Phil can accomplish through multiple re-livings of the same boring day, Ramis provides the viewers with something of a satirical and escapist re-envisioning of what a capitalistic life could look like if the monotony of the every day weren’t just comedic but also weird, redemptive, and slow enough that we could learn to pursue what we really wanted.
A lot of Groundhog Day spin-offs made throughout films and TV have proposed similar outcomes— in the end, the protagonist realizes what they want, pursues it, and comes to appreciate the life they once didn’t so much appreciate. So, is what’s most gained from these “loops” a lesson in redemption and second (or rather, multiple) chancing? If so, as spectators of this phenomenon, are we to give in to the idealist viewing of it all?
Not all narratives spoofing the Groundhog Day formula are about bettering oneself through multiple do-overs, though—for example, Community’s Groundhog Day-invoking episode, “Remedial Chaos Theory,” is more so about surveying three “timelines” that occur simultaneously. These sort of adaptations shows us that speculative viewing and earnestly questioning, “What’s the point of this?” is definitely still part of the conversation.
In the end, the ultimate question all of these narratives offer is quite simple: do we need repetition to find newness?
It’s a question that’s easy to leave on the back burner and repress for later you to ponder, especially if you feel bored, exhausted, and yet kinda entitled at your day job like pre-loop Phil (which is most of us).
At first, I thought this was the essential question Groundhog Day was offering up as well. But just as I was queuing it up to watch it again, I was confronted with a new thought. Perhaps the most important question for my second viewing of Groundhog Day was the one that was asked in the film, by Phil himself, directly to us:
To us, does Phil feel lucky?
“Qs for Your Second Viewing of” (QF2) is part of an ongoing series in No Hierarchies. QF2 articles don’t aim to “solve” the topic at hand but instead provide questions to allow for open conversation and perspectives.
