But the movie is much more than that. Or, at the very least, it could be. My eyes were first opened to this movie a few weeks ago when I was reading the Wikipedia article on it. I've been wanting to write about it for a while, and I figure this was as good a time as any.
The passage that I liked mentioned the duration of time that Phil is stuck in the cycle. The movie shows about forty repetitions of the day, and I hadn't really thought about it much more than that. But the article says that director Harold Ramis estimated that Phil spent about ten years in the loop. An online article indicated that, at the very least, he spent eight and a half years in the loop.
But then there was the kicker. In the original script, it indicated that he repeated Groundhog Day 10,000 times before he got it right. That's 27 years...longer than I've been alive. And that's not all - people commented on some of these articles with bigger thoughts - that Phil spent hundreds of years in the loop. Maybe thousands.
When you think about the day in those terms, it gets more profound than a simple comedy.
Let's start with the basics. Phil is a cynical man who doesn't want to be sent to cover the Groundhog. He's arrogant and spiteful, and he's the classic Scrooge character that is in need of a magical way avenue to turn his life around.
Of course, after learning what's happened...he tries to benefit from it. He stops trying to be good, and he tries to capitalize on his predicament. He uses his wealth of knowledge to seduce the town hottie, robs an armored car, and learns the town's secrets. When he realizes he truly wants his producer Rita, he spends each day building the perfect day with her. Every time he makes a mistake, he re-calculates and gives it another try the next cycle. He eventually gives up on that, though, and falls into depression.
Trying to end the cycle, he steals the groundhog and drives a car off a cliff. He kills himself.
After that fails, he decides to go on the right path. He tries to rescue an old man before he realizes that he's truly meant to die on February 2nd. He learns to play the piano. He learns to ice sculpt. He learns French. He truly meets and befriends everyone in the town, and he eventually wins Rita's heart. And that's when he wakes up on February 3rd.
The arguments that people generally use to break down his time spent in the loop is the time it would take to acquire the skills he learns. Learning French, learning to play the piano, and learning to ice sculpt all takes time. Months and years of time. It would also take time to meet everyone in the town and learn all about them. To memorize wind patterns for the robbery. To know exactly what happens all day.
And I can see the 10 year thing making sense. But what intrigues me is the parts in the middle. If a lot of time is missing, I think it's there.
In the lowpoint of the movie, after abandoning his attempts to win Rita, Phil decides that the only way out of the loop is to die. The protagonist of a movie kills himself. Over and over again.
We don't worry too much about it because he wakes back up each time. But let's not forget that Phil doesn't have suicidal tendencies in the beginning. He's driven to depression (and suicide) by the events themselves.
Now would re-living the same day over and over cause a man to kill himself? Almost certainly. But I imagine it would take time. There's enough for Phil to do to amuse himself before he decides that it needs to stop. You have to think that he tried everything and did everything before he'd go completely crazy. After all, it's only a loop in the sense that no one remembers what happened the day before.
He could've woken up every day and done something completely different, and it still would've been exciting to him. We know he uses the time to learn hobbies and gain knowledge - it's not like boredom would've led him to kill himself.
I imagine, if the movie were real, he'd only stoop to such a level after he'd exhausted his other options. After he'd done everything there is to do. And then, I imagine, he'd probably spend a few days thinking about it before going down that road. It would be a slow decline into depression...not something he just decides to do. Because Phil can't possibly think the death won't stick...otherwise, what's the point?
And he does it. And it doesn't work. But that doesn't matter. He tries it again.
And this proves that Phil is actually just depressed...not simply trying to end the cycle. If he was thinking death would end the cycle, the first suicide attempt ended that theory. If it didn't work in a car explosion, it wouldn't work by electrocution. Or getting hit by a car. Or any of the other attempts that are mentioned but not shown.
And he mentions things like getting stabbed and set on fire. These are not easy/quick/simple ways of dying - both of those are painful ways of dying. Proving that, not only does Phil want to die - he wants to feel pain.
And while depression might take a while to get going, it would take even longer to pull himself out of it. After Phil's decided that he wants to die, what would prompt him to decide to live? And that's the tricky question. Nothing really improves for him, and a lot of the ways that "normal" people pull themselves out of depression don't really apply with Phil.
So I'm guessing the only way he pulls himself out is the realization that there's no way out. And I'm guessing that would take longer than the movie implies.
If I had to think about it, I'd lean more towards the 27 years than anything less or drastically more. Although I really like the idea that he spends several lifetimes re-living the same day.
But one of the more interesting parts of the movie are the parts we don't see - the next day. The movie implies, like with Scrooge, that Phil becomes a better person and lives happily ever after with Rita.
But is that what would happen? After reliving the same day thousands of times, how would he re-integrate himself into the real world? How would he go from a world with no consequences to a world full of them? From a world where he's immortal to one where he ages and dies? To a world where, if he screws up, he doesn't get another chance?
Phil is able to live the perfect day after being given thousands of chances. How would he do in a world where you only get one each day? Would that drive him crazy? Perhaps, in fact, even crazier than the loop itself made him?
I think it would be pretty interesting to re-write the movie. Make it a bit more serious, driving home the psychological effects of living the same day over and over. Show the full spectrum of emotional reactions to the event...leading him slowly down the path of depression...and slowly out of it. And then how a person can react to that.
I read a theory a while back that "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" takes place entirely inside Cameron's head - like "Fight Club." A friend of mine said that it was a bit too much thought used on a movie that's just supposed to be funny.
That might apply to "Groundhog Day" too. But the movie is unique and touches on a lot of interesting topics - religion, psychology, and philosophy. It might just be a comedy, but there's a lot more below the surface. Or, at least, there could be.
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