Groundhog Day

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Written by Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis, Directed by Harold Ramis Release Date: February 12, 1993

The High: Phil Connors (Bill Murray) is a self-absorbed weatherman cursed to relive Groundhog Day over and over in Punxatawny, PA.

The Low: The small-town and it's in inhabitants make Phil confront his own egotism and need for human interaction.

Since its release in 1993, Groundhog Day has grown to become regarded a modern classic and perhaps most popular high-low concept comedy. It has seen multiple home video releases, the latest with extensive commentary from the filmmakers acknowledging the broad acceptance of the film not only by audiences, but among religious and a philosophical groups.

God, Complex?

We first meet a Phil Connors who is in charge of his world — looming large, blowing clouds around on a TV weather map of the Eastern Seaboard. A perfect job for a control-obsessed loner with a god complex. What makes this one of my favorite character introductions is our ability to see the blank blue screen, revealing the truth he hopes to hide: the world he controls is empty, and he inhabits it alone.




When a blizzard he prescribed for XX dumps snow on the highway back to Pittsburgh, Phil confronts a policeman and reveals his god complex:



Bill Murray Gets Out of Van In Snow Talks to Cop



Weather Prediction: This Is Pitiful




Jeopardy Scene



First Scene With Ned



Hustling Nancy Taylor




Phil Kindnaps Groundhog



Beidtime Monlogue




Final Scene With Ned








The success of the story owes much to Bill Murray's career transition from playing lovable underdogs (Meatballs, Stripes, Ghostbusters) to lovable misanthropes (Scrooged, What About Bob?, Quick Change). We've seen him put through tortuous paces and learn important lessons in previous films. Yet in Groundhog it feels like we follow Murray into a deeper, darker hole than in previous efforts, and his emergence