Moods: Groundhog Day
You know that feeling when you try to get up on a cold winter morning and you just… can’t? Eventually, you manage to start your day, but, before you know it, it’s dark again, you’re back in bed, and the next morning is a new challenge. Spring seems so far away.
Groundhog Day is a paean to that universal mood. Although, on the surface, the film is a routine comedy (a comedy about routine), it’s surprisingly profound — a deep puddle beneath an icy surface.
Films can often seem too idealised, lacking the banal aspects of real life to allow for entertainment and escape. But Groundhog Day revels in the mundane, building a dystopian winter of discontent.
Bill Murray’s misanthropic Phil Connors is faced with living the same day on repeat forever, without explanation. How he responds is an allegory for how any of us deal with quotidian life, as we have decide if the day ahead is a blessing or a curse.
The former is initially true for Connors: he attempts a hedonistic lifestyle, realizing that repercussions no longer exist. But, he comes to understand, his is a world of stasis; he is the only one who can age and adapt. Although Connors is the sole living being with any future, his tomorrow is yesterday, as he equally progresses and regresses. And depression results from the feeling of entrapment that the always-grey world around him accentuates.
Especially during winter, our reality can seem static too, the world unable to make progress. Yet Groundhog Day inspires us to break though and relish the time we have. Connors learns to embrace the blank slate he’s offered each day, and, when the time loop is broken, he has changed for the better. Each time we wake up, we have a chance to do the same. Everyday doesn’t have to be February 2nd…
You know that feeling when you try to get up on a cold winter morning and you just… can’t? Eventually, you manage to start your day, but, before you know it, it’s dark again, you’re back in bed, and the next morning is a new challenge. Spring seems so far away.
