[ed: Today's post comes from guest blogger Josh Tyler, CEO and founder of Cinemablend.]
The big question everyone always asks after watching Groundhog Day is invariably this: Just how long was Phil Connors trapped in Puxatawny? Long enough to become a brilliant piano player, memorize volumes of French poetry and win the heart of Andie MacDowell of course. In the film we actually only see around 40 specific days. We watch him through electrocutions and suicide leaps, groundhog kidnappings and the much deserved punching of Ned Ryerson. We’re with him as he tries over and over and over again to pull off the perfect date with Rita, failing each time until at last he’s bored and frustrated with trying. But we never see the six months Phil admits he spent learning to throw cards into a hat. Or the weeks of planning it must have taken to pull off the perfect bank robbery. Or the years of work he must have put in to become a world class ice sculptor. One lesson every day, one day at a time.
Instead we see the years reflected in Phil’s face, the bags under his eyes, the stoop in his step. He may not be aging but as the world becomes one big, eternal do-over, he’s growing older and wiser on the inside. The great thing about Groundhog Day is that it doesn’t matter how long Phil is in Puxatawny nor does it matter how he came to be trapped there, living the same day over and over and over again. Is it a twist of fate? An act of god meant to make him a better man? Or is it Phil himself who has become almighty? Phil theorizes, “Well maybe the real God uses tricks, you know? Maybe he’s not omnipotent. He’s just been around so long he knows everything.” Eventually Phil does know everything, literally everything, there is to know about one sleepy, snowy little town. He knows everything except why he’s there, and that’s something neither he nor we will ever know.
It’s better that way. While other movies bog themselves down in explanations, Groundhog Day is content to let well enough alone. Bill Murray walks off into the snow a better person, never knowing why he’s been where he’s been. The questions don’t matter and there is no big reveal. There is simply one man stuck in one place, with nowhere else to go. There are no spoilers because there are no answers. What happens in Groundhog Day is, like the movie itself, one of those beautiful confluences of fate. A place in time where the perfect people came together in the perfect place and made magic happen in an amazing movie for reasons we don’t need understand.
So just how long was Phil Connors trapped in Puxatawny? The answer, according to director Harold Ramis, is about ten years. I say he’s still there, he’ll always be there, any time you want to pop in the DVD or push play here on Crackle. Groundhog Day is magical; a funny, smart and timeless film which deserves to be, and will always be, watched over and over and over again. Getting out of Puxatawny ain’t easy, so why not stay?
Josh Tyler – Guest Blogger, Cinemablend
[ed: If you need another repeat on Phil Connors, stop by eGuiders for even more.]
Tags: #31in31, Andie MacDowell, bill murray, Crackle Summer Drive-In, groundhog day, Harold Ramis
I’ve always wanted to see what happened to Phil Connors after groundhog day. After the repeats. Was he really a changed man? What other things must he have learned in the ten or so years repeating the same day?
Or, what if this happened to someone else in another location? Then to find Phil there too stuck repeating the same day, older. Repeating the day until the right set of events happen.
Either way, watching Groundhog Day is a wonderful way to spend an afternoon.
I also wonder what happened next. I wonder if he would ever have “shell shock” moments from all his many gruesome deaths.
I’ve also always assumed that this could be a regular occurrence happening at random around the world with any number of outcomes – maybe even some more dramatic. What happens if someone who’s already a “good” guy gets stuck repeating the same day and for the life of him he can’t figure out why he’s being trapped?