Directed by Harold Ramis
Bill Murray, Andie McDowell
Phil: Well, what if there is no tomorrow? There wasn't one today.
Bill Murray plays Phil Connors, a self-absorbed Pittsburgh weatherman sent to cover the annual Groundhog Day celebration in Punxsutawney Pennsylvania. He completes his job with palpable bad grace and is eager to get back home, but a blizzard prevents him and his crew from returning to the city. They must spend the night in Punxsutawney. Phil wakes up the next morning — and it’s Groundhog Day again. And again. And again. He is trapped, not just in a small town, but in a single day in that small town, and nothing he does seems to change what he hears on the radio first thing in the morning — Sonny and Cher singing an increasingly maddening “I Got You, Babe.”
This fantastic fable is blessed with a perfect pitch performance by Murray, and a funny, thought-provoking script. The result is a film that’s not only entertaining, but likely to inspire a thousand after-movie debates about time, ethics, and karma.
One additional note: In 1993, when Groundhog Day was released, Harold Ramis was known mainly for the kind of snarky, college- age humor associated with National Lampoon and SNL. Perhaps that’s why a film critic for the Washington Post declared that the movie would “never be designated a national film treasure by the Library of Congress.”
In fact, thirteen years later, The National Film Preservation Board selected Groundhog Day for preservation in the Library of Congress.
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