| Overall Grade: |
B+ |
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| Story: |
A- |
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| Acting: |
A- |
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| Direction: |
B |
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| Visuals: |
B |
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One of those days
by CarlosC (movies profile)
Mar 16, 2007
6
of
8 people found this review helpful
Bill Murray is stuck reliving the same day over and over and cannot figure out how to break out in this unassuming romantic comedy that first brought up the dramatic potential of a man who would later show his full acting prowess in movies such as RUSHMORE (1998) and LOST IN TRANSLATION (2003). In GROUNDHOG, we see the first glint of Bill Murray's knack for playing tragical-comical figures who hide their pain behind a jaded façade. Murray plays a television weatherman covering the traditional groundhog's shadow story on February 2 (the day that a groundhog is said to predict the length of winter by whether or not he sees his shadow in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania). But, after he goes to bed at the end of the day, he invariably reawakens to relive the same day.
At first, Murray is befuddled and frustrated by his fate. He complains, "I was in the Virgin Islands once. I met a girl. We ate lobster and drank piña coladas. At sunset we made love like sea otters. *That* was a pretty good day. Why couldn't I get that day over and over and over!" But, then, the cynical and world-weary TV personality begins to try to game his unique perspective to gain advantage on everyone else. Predictably, at first he tries to get sex and take advantage of the apparent lack of consequences to everything he does. However, he is soon consumed by the despair and desolation that his artifice produce. He can only get women by tricking them (finding out stuff about them one day, and using it to his advantage on the "next" day when only he remembers the prior encounter, etc.). His dejection is compounded by the fact that the following day, he wakes up alone in his bed, back to square one, having nothing to show for the favors he had won.
Although GROUNDHOG DAY should not be mistaken for anything other than a safe, and perfectly shallow kiddie pool, it has been the entree for deeper immersion of determinism and free will. Buddhist gurus have embraced it as a prosletizing tool, and when it was screened at the Museum of Modern Art, the New York Times reported that the film had become a curious favorite of religious leaders of many faiths. The unassuming script concludes, as do many religiuos scriptures, that the hero cannot be happy as long as he seeks material gain, and that he must become a better person to break the cycle of temporal reincarnation in GROUNDHOG DAY.
But, never mind all that. Except for the occasional pratfall, this light romantic comedy keeps its feet on the ground.
(Carlos Colorado) |
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