By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff
Anyone who works in local media knows the peculiar exhaustion that goes with covering the same event year after year. There are only so many ways to frame a familiar story without repeating yourself, and it’s one of the fastest ways to feel the dreaded burnout.
That’s the setup for the iconic 1993 darkly comedic Groundhog Day, starring Bill Murray as a weather man named Phil who has to report on the rodent’s annual appearance for the fourth time in a row.
Phil — who shares a name with the titular woodchuck Punxsutawney Phil — is fed up with the assignment, but also jaded and arrogant. Yet, he has a crush on his much more well-adjusted producer Rita (Andie MacDowell), but she’s turned off by his general nastiness. Everything changes when a fluke in the space-time continuum has Phil waking up every morning to relive the same day: Groundhog Day.
It’s never explained why or how this time loop manifested, but Phil is stuck in it for what could be eternity. His confusion transforms into acceptance, which turns into boredom and eventually suicidal attempts to break the cycle. Even driving off a cliff with the groundhog in the passenger seat results in Phil reawakening in the same bed, listening to the same Sonny and Cher song on the morning radio show, in the same town on the same day.
Eventually, Phil uses his apparent immortality and recurrent temporal existence to cultivate various skills and — crucially — get to know everything about Rita so as to woo her for a romance that resets each midnight. Along the way, his do-overs culminate in some measure of personal growth and he ceases to be the grumpiest weather man in Punxsutawney, Penn.
Though seemingly lighthearted, and with a romantic tinge, director Harold Ramis played with some profound concepts about change over time and the meaning of life (I even watched Groundhog Day as part of a college course on German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who theorized the concept of “eternal return”).
Most of all, it’s a stellar vehicle for Murray to create one of the most memorable characters in late-20th century cinema. Appropriately, the Panida Theater is bringing Groundhog Day to the big screen on Sunday, Feb. 2 (the actual Groundhog Day), as the first in its Sunday Cinema Series. Showings are at 1 p.m. and 6 p.m., with doors open 30 minutes beforehand. Tickets are $5 at panida.org or the box office (300 N. First Ave., in downtown Sandpoint).
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