Groundhog Day; Angel Food Cake
Okay campers, rise and shine, and don't forget your booties 'cause it's coooooold out there today!
Groundhog Day (1993)
Director: Harold Ramis
Had I seen this before: Over and over and over
Time loop variety/genre: Metaphysical/mostly com with some rom
Welcome to a new month and a new blog theme, where instead of agonizing over something I despise, I’m enthusiastically celebrating something I love: the unparalleled storytelling gimmick that is the time loop. I am an absolute sucker for these things. There are so many fun possibilities when a character gets countless bites at the same apple, be they comedic, heart-pounding, or just very weird. I even have affection for the deeply mediocre ones, as long as there’s something trippy going on with the time stream, man. Of course, the question must be asked: do I appreciate the time loop for its many creative possibilities and fantastical lack of consequences? Or was I simply imprinted upon by today’s movie (the time loop urtext) at age 12 when, sitting in the theater near the end of the film, I realized that Sonny and Cher were singing a different section of the song and it was like fireworks in my brain? Am I forever just chasing that dragon groundhog?
Phil Connors (Bill Murray) is a weatherman at a Pittsburgh-area news station who has a sarcastic sort of charm and a prickly misanthropic streak. He grumpily embarks on his fourth year in a row covering the annual Groundhog Festival in Punxsutawney, a tiny village in western Pennsylvania (blah blah blah blah blah—but I’m getting ahead of myself). In tow are cameraman Larry (Chris Elliot) (I would give a brief character description but I think “Chris Elliot” covers it) and new, enthusiastic producer Rita (Andie McDowell). At 6:00 am on Groundhog Day, the clock radio in Phil’s B&B springs to life with a song that I unironically liked before this film and have unironically liked ever since—Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe.” After which the morning DJs come in hot with some cheesy, high-energy banter about the day, during which we learn that Phil shares a given name with the marmot of the hour, Punxsutawney Phil.
He makes his way downstairs for coffee, where he uses the tone of someone who is joking genially but is actually quite mean and snobby to anyone politely chatting him up, including the sweet proprietor of the bed and breakfast. Once on the gray, snowy streets of Punxsutawney, he encounters one of the greatest that guy performances in the history of cinema, Stephen Tobolowsky’s Ned Ryerson, a flamboyantly dorky, highly aggressive insurance salesman who remembers Phil from high school. He blows off Ned, steps in an ice-water-filled pothole, and finally pushes his way into the excited, polka-loving crowd gathered at the impeccably named Gobbler’s Knob. The mayor (Brian Doyle Murray) pulls the groundhog out of a giant tree stump, talks to it for a minute, and announces with regret that Phil definitely saw his shadow, indicating six more weeks of winter. Our Phil records his TV hit with a heavy dose of sarcasm, and his work is through.
Phil, Larry, and Rita load up the van and head out of town but the roads are closed due to the incoming blizzard that Phil predicted would miss the area. “You can go back to Punxsutawney or you can go ahead and freeze to death, it’s your choice, so what’s it gonna be?” says the state trooper, to which Phil waits a few beats, then replies, “I’m thinking.” He reluctantly returns to town, blows off Larry and Rita’s dinner invitation, discovers that there’s no hot water at his B&B, and goes to bed, relieved to be through with this deeply annoying day.
As we know, however, this deeply annoying day ain’t through with Phil, who wakes up at 6:00 am to the dulcet tones of 60s power couple Sonny and Cher. “Nice going boys, you’re playing yesterday’s tape,” he grumbles as the DJs declare “It’s Groundhog Day!” Baffled and increasingly freaked out, Phil walks through all of the day’s previous events. “Well, it’s Groundhog Day…again,” he tells the news camera, before rediscovering that there is still no hot water at his B&B and pleading on the phone for someone to please, please find him a line out. But there is no line out and now way out and no tomorrow for Phil, who is fated to relive this Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney indefinitely.
We pick up a few more locations as Phil varies from his original routine—a diner, a bowling alley—and once he really embraces the concept that there is no tomorrow, meaning there are no consequences for anything he does, the restrictor plate comes off and Bill Murray enters full chaotic neutral mode. He eats and smokes, he breaks laws, he proposes to a cute lady named Nancy, he executes a well-timed armored car heist, he cosplays as The Man With No Name. He also begins pursuing Rita, using his advantage as a now-timeless entity to methodically learn everything he can about her, but his advances are ultimately thwarted, because everything he does still comes from a place of selfishness. His natural charm becomes manic and aggressive, his courting frenzied, his face repeatedly slapped. This is when the depression sets in and Phil gives up on everything, which is good news for us as viewers because I think hopeless Phil rubbing up against the unrelentingly cheery townsfolk is the funniest dynamic in the movie—especially when he tries to end the cycle by destroying his natural enemy, Punxsutawney Phil.
Of course, the death of the groundhog is no escape, nor is the death of Phil, regardless of how often he tries it. At this point, there is only one strategy left that Phil hasn’t investigated—being pleasant. One day he is honest and vulnerable with Rita and everything changes. The new Phil is helpful at work, engages enthusiastically with everyone, learns to play the piano and sculpt ice, and goes about using his knowledge of everyone in the town to help them out in small ways. Eventually everything clicks into place—his generosity helps basically everyone in town, and he connects with Rita in a real, non-smarmy way. When 6:00 flips over, it’s Sonny and Cher as usual—but then the DJs pipe up with new material about what a great song that is, and February 3rd has finally arrived.
I have watched this movie once a year for the vast majority of the past thirty years. Unlike in Phil’s case, every version of the loop is the same for me—I am delighted by grumpy Phil, delighted by chaos Phil, dismayed by date-rapey Phil, delighted by despondent Phil, delighted by helpful Phil. Delighted by the vests of 1993. Delighted by the undimmable sunniness of the Punxsutawney population. Delighted by Tobolowsky and his commitment to the bit. Delighted by a baby-faced Michael Shannon losing his mind at Wrestlemania tickets. Delighted by Nat King Cole singing about the rare mood he’s in. It’s my favorite Bill Murray, my favorite Harold Ramis, my favorite non-holiday holiday. It makes me want to be nicer, to learn to play the piano, to hug a groundhog. To bring back vests.
Time loop solution: Stop being a dick
Did I understand/care how the loop worked: This one has a sort of spiritual, karmic element that does not require detailed explanation, to my mind—Phil escapes his loop by embracing, rather than diminishing, his fellow man. The universe seizes, then releases him. What’s not to understand?
How unpleasant would this loop be for me personally (1-10): I have to weigh the cold slush of Pennsylvania in February (no hot showers in that bed and breakfast, yikes) and the inevitable daily conversation with Ned Ryerson against a quaint and friendly little town with a bowling alley and some a very appealing diner offerings. Assuming I could find a shop to (repeatedly) purchase enough warm layers to stay cozy, and taking into account the fact that I kinda like polka music and cheesy festivals, the unpleasantness here is pretty low. 2.5
Angel Food Cake from Sally’s Baking Addiction
One of the most relatable aspects of this movie is that one of Phil’s first instincts, as a middle-aged person with no tomorrow to worry about, is to eat absolutely anything and everything he has ever wanted. Did the diner scene hit as hard for me as a 12-year-old basketball player as it does for me as a mildly active woman who is a few months away from having to excise the word “early” from “early forties?” It did not. Actually, Bill Murray was exactly the age I am now when this movie came out, which puts a little extra spice on Rita’s “I like to see a man of advancing years throwing caution to the wind, it’s inspiring in a way.” (“My years are not advancing as fast as you might think,” he confesses.) I admire everything happening on the table in that scene, but I especially admire the way Bill Murray crams an entire slice of angel food cake into his mouth at once. Cinema!
(Please take a moment to appreciate the fact that I, a real 43-year-old, did eat the above for dinner last night and then had to drag a one-day-older body out of bed this morning. The sacrifices I make for my work are unending.)
Up next: A lovely desert wedding