14 Love Stories: GROUNDHOG DAY

  Happy February!  We're halfway through the late winter doldrums, and that means its time for candy hearts and movies about young beautiful people trying to score.  Don't give me any of that anti-Valentine's Day crap.  I'm single and even a bit cynical, but I think that just makes it better.  The nice thing about Valentine's is that, being about romantic love, there's a whole genre of films appropriate for holiday viewing; the trick is finding the good ones!  I'll give you a few of my recommendations, 14 to be exact.  I don't know if these are really the "best" romance movies ever, and I few of them I'm sure are not, but I personally love each one.

There are a couple of other holidays in February, but none of them quite so marketable as Valentine's Day.  Groundhog Day is a particularly lame holiday, one that is all too easily outdone by the one Groundhog Day movie, and so while that isn't saying much, GROUNDHOG DAY the movie could outdo a few of the more legitimate holidays.  And if your busy watching the Super Bowl on Groundhog Day, you can still get away with watching it as late in the month as Valentine's Day, because it also happens to be one of the best romantic comedies there is.
GROUNDHOG DAY  (1993)
Directed by Harold Ramis
Starring: Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, Chris Elliot, Brian Doyle-Murray, Stephen Tobolowsky
PG for some thematic elements.
Availabilty: For purchase or rent on some streaming services, some retailers
Conveniently, GROUNDHOG DAY makes for an excellent Valentine's Day movie, and an even better Groundhog Day movie.  Of course, for all the bellyaching that the Lonely Hearts Club does about Valentine's Day being a so-called "made-up holiday", I can't help but feel that it's much more of a genuine holiday than Groundhog Day.
That's how Phil Connors (Bill Murray) feels too.  Phil, an egocentric meteorologist at a local news station in Pittsburgh is returning yet again to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania on the assignment he hates most: reporting on the Groundhog Day Festival.  Accompanying him on this assignment are his sad-sack cameraman, Larry (Chris Elliott), and his super-optimistic new producer, Rita (Andie MacDowell), both of whom Phil uses as targets for his ruthless wit while seething in the small town simplicity.  Grudgingly, Phil makes his report on the festivities, but when it comes time to leave, a blizzard results shuts down all travel back to Pittsburgh, so Phil is forced to return to the country bed & breakfast and stay another night.  When he wakes up the next morning, the radio alarm clock is playing the same local broadcast as yesterday, but as the day goes on, Phil realizes that all the previous day's events are repeating themselves without variation outside of his singular involvement.  The same idiot he hasn't seen since high school tries to sell him life insurance, the same festival happens at Gobbler's Knob, every single person approaches him with the same casual talk and the groundhog still sees his shadow.  Then it happens again, and again.  Only Phil seems at all aware of the "time loop" he finds himself trapped in, while everyone else has no apparent knowledge of it being anything but a regular Groundhog Day.  It's the worst day that Phil can imagine being trapped in, but after so many days, Phil comes to the realization that as every day begins with the same starting point, where no matter what he's done the day before, everything will play out exactly the same without consequence lasting beyond 6:00 am the next morning, he can get away with practically anything.  He can commit any crime, cause any damage, do whatever the hell he wants without sustained repercussion.  He learns the secrets of townspeople over days at a time, using such information to seduce women by using information he has learned about them from the day before within a new pretext.  He starts to fancy Rita, and attempts to seduce her, but finds that her favor requires a much more extensive commitment that seems out of reach within the 24-hour allotment of time he has with her before things revert back to when she knew him as a jerk.  Finally losing it, Phil tries to commit suicide, but no matter how many times he kills himself, he always wakes up the next morning at 6:00 am.  So, after presumably years and years stuck in the same Groundhog Day, Phil starts to improve his life for real.
It's strange that GROUNDHOG DAY doesn't seem to be regularly included with the "best" movies, the classics, because it really is such a stellar film on so many levels, and it has received some of that recognition.  Legendary film critic Roger Ebert appointed GROUNDHOG DAY the title of a "Great Movie" in 2005, the American Film Institute listed it as one of the best comedy films ever in 2000 and as one of the ten best fantasy films ever in 2008 and the Writers Guild of America ranked it #27 on their list of 101 Greatest Screenplays ever written.  Most significantly, the film was selected for preservation by the U.S. Library of Congress for the National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".  It's been identified by many religious groups, especially for Buddhists, as an extremely spiritual film for its themes of karma, self-improvement through outward goodness and selflessness, rebirth and spiritual transcendence.
It also happens to be a damn good love story.

*BONUS*
It's never actually said how long a time Phil is trapped in Groundhog Day, but there have been those committed enough and with enough time to kill who have figured out some pretty good estimates.  By whatculture.com's reckoning, it's a grand total of at least 33 years and 350 days.  Check it out: http://whatculture.com/film/just-how-many-days-does-bill-murray-really-spend-stuck-reliving-groundhog-day.php