fave-oween #31: Groundhog Day

Get out the pumpkins, cheap candy, cheesy b-horror movies, and let your front yard get messy as hell under the excuse of it being in season because It's HALLOWEEN TIME! So, in celebration of my favorite month of the year ,I will be counting down my 31 favorite films, one a day. And to start it off...

31. Groundhog Day
     ...how about a romantic dramedy centered on a holiday that's not Halloween? It's in spirit with Halloween, right?
     My dad has been drilling how genius this film is for years, and it took me a while, but I cracked. Cause this film is amazing. It is the perfect example of how to get an emotionally satisfying, hilarious story from a simply told character arc, great comedy and dimensional characters. The main character Phil (Bill Murray) is a jerk that is sarcastically mean to the point where he has a character that we want to see change but we actually kinda care about and like. He's not just a cardboard jerk, he's a human. He makes snippy jokes and is selfish, but never to the point where it gets annoying, and we don't get turned off to caring about him. Because people act selfish and snippy, and the jokes he makes are not just great set ups for his change throughout the films, but also pretty funny, and get the audience on his side.
    But that's just touching the exposition. When the plot actually starts and Phil begins repeating Groundhog Day, his least favorite day of the year, he goes through the motions exactly like a lot of people would.As the same day repeats, he at first decides to live it to the fullest; doing stupid stunts and getting arrested, knowing it will all be canceled out by next morning, getting the timing just right to steal purses, but mostly trying to get into the pants of his work partner, Rita (Andie MacDowell). These scenes between the two of them are probably the most interesting. We see them in a restaurant, talking, where Phil finds out what Rita likes and says he hates most of it. At the end of the scene, we cut right back to the beginning again, and everything is the same, down to clothes on extras, placement of cups, and exactly how the german waitress turns around and begins walking to a table with beer. This time, however, Phil completely convolutes the situation in his favor, agreeing with Rita on everything, but still screwing up. So at the end, the scene repeats again. This scene layout happens a few other times, and each time the timing and writing are perfect, making the conversations all seem natural, but showing the different paths that unfold based on how much Phil knows about Rita.
    Slowly, Phil moves through his character arc, from using the strange gift to his advantage, to realizing there's no way out, to becoming depressed and trying many times to commit suicide, to realizing he has to reach out to others for help. The great part about this dramedy (or drama/comedy) is that it shifts from light hearted and funny to morose so well. When Phil realizes there's no way out of this eternal loop and struggles with that, there are no jokes made. The filmmakers knew that that was the time to not be a comedy and that they had to focus more on the depressed state the main character was in, furthering the character even more and taking us for another twist in the emotional roller coaster this film makes.

Tomorrow: A film where a kid remains totally fine after getting struck by lightning, Bruce Willis plays a wimpy cop, and the narrator talks to the audience, but is still inside the movie's universe itself, but can't be because...yeah, it's pretty confusing.