Groundhog Day 1993, Rated PG Columbia/Tristar Home Video

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Starring Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell.

This is one of those fantastical ideas that everyone has thought about at one point in time or another. I know for a fact that I used to do this Monday through Friday, 8:00-3:25 when I was in high school. Now that I am in the proverbial real world, the amount of time I spend thinking about ideas like this -- continually reliving the same day, stopping time, and being alone on a Caribbean island with my girlfriend -- has, of course, increased monumentally.

In this film, Bill Murray plays a Pittsburgh weatherman who, for some unexplained reason, repeatedly relives the day of February 2nd. At first he sees this as a blessing; he can do whatever he wants and there will be no negative repercussions. Slowly he begins to realize the flip side of this situation: nothing he does ever matters.

For those of you who have seen director and co-writer Harold Ramis' most recent movie, Multiplicity, you'll know, at times, he can have a very heavy sentimental hand. This, for the most part, is absent from Groundhog Day. Ramis seems to understand that Murray and the premise of the film are big enough selling points and, with one exception, doesn't taint the water with sappy confessions of love or over emotional moments.

This is a great positive for the viewer. Instead of introducing familiar and almost played out conventions like taking a greater interest in your job, or family, or coming to a heightened sense of responsibility, that would normally drag down a film such as this, Ramis allows the material to speak for itself and the end product greatly benefited from this.

Murray, as usual, is great as the lead, but don't go into this one expecting another deranged performance like he gave as Carl in Caddyshack. Murray is more subdued and serious, which works well in the context of this film. On another note, Ramis deserves special recognition for keeping the minute details of this movie in fully functioning order. In a film such as this, with ever repeating situations, having characters mix up familiar lines, or react differently to similar events is always a serious threat, but Ramis does not allow any of these things to happen. The people in Groundhog Day always say the same thing, always do the same things, and behave in the manner that we expect them to.

Ramis has a great script to work off of and has created a phenomenally entertaining film here.