By this point today, the famous groundhogs among us should have made their weather predictions for the winter. But when you’re done reading the accounts of Punxatawney Phil and his colleagues, Lake Effect essayist Joanne Weintraub essayist Joanne Weintraub urges you to revisit a seasonally appropriate movie:
Since I'm not the American Film Institute, nor in fact any sort of institute at all, I figure nobody really needs my list of the greatest movies of all time. But if I were to compile such a list, way up there in the top 20 would be Fargo, This Is Spinal Tap, Some Like It Hot, Goodfellas, the first two Godfather movies (but not the third), the first two Christopher Reeve Superman movies (but not the third and, please god, not the fourth), the original Argentine version of a recently Americanized thriller called The Secret in Their Eyes, and--to return from the exotic and foreign to the cozy and domestic--the late, great Harold Ramis's Groundhog Day.
If you're old enough to listen to NPR, you're probably old enough to have seen this 1993 comedy starring that fearless, peerless weirdo Bill Murray as a TV weatherman who thinks he's way too good for Pittsburgh. And if he's too good for Pittsburgh, just imagine how he feels about driving to Punxsutawney, Pa., to cover the emergence of the movie's title creature on the title holiday to observe whether the little guy does or doesn't see his shadow.
The only thing that interests Bill about the whole trip is getting into the pants of his angelic new producer, played by Andie MacDowell, but she's keeping her pants zipped, thank you very much, because the guy is such a big flaming jerk.
So there's Bill, trapped in Punxsutawney for the whole day, with Andie resisting his come-ons and the somewhat less angelic Chris Elliott, as their cameraman, along for the ride.
Only he's not trapped in Punxsutawney for just one day. Because of a warp in the good old time-space continuum, Bill appears to be trapped in Punxsutawney forever. Worse, if turns out that every single day there is Groundhog Day. Morning after morning after morning, the clock radio goes off at 6, the same annoying Sonny & Cher song comes on, the same wacko morning zoo guys say, hey, it's gonna be another cold one out there today, and the title varmint, the famous Punxsutawney Phil, once again re-enacts his increasingly tedious ritual.
Could Bill's life get any worse? Condemned to live out his life in a hick town on one of the coldest days of the year with a dorky camera guy and an unwilling sex object, he feels like he's in some Keystone State version of hell.
But then something unexpected happens. Very slowly, and at first reluctantly, Bill decides to make the best of his fate. Stuck in one place on one endless, cheerless day, he learns to carve ice angels. He learns to play the piano like the second coming of Art Tatum, or at least Fats Waller. He learns, in fact, not to be a jerk, at first simply and selfishly in the interest of scoring with Andie MacDowell, but eventually because, as he discovers, it feels good to care about somebody other than his own tiresome self.
So the message of Groundhog Day--and if you don't find a message in this movie, you're not paying attention--is the same one Voltaire suggested when he advised each of us to cultivate our own garden. It's the one that says to bloom wherever you're planted.
It's not always an easy message to remember, especially for those of us who, at this time of year, start wondering why were weren't planted someplace like, oh, say, Santa Barbara, where blooming wouldn't have to be done though so much dirty snow and slippery ice.
But the truth is, whether we find ourselves in Punxsutawney, Pewaukee or even Paris, every day essentially is the same day, in some existentially baffling but very real way. So why not make the best of it? Why not learn to carve ice angels and play the piano? Why not, in fact, learn to get over your tiresome self and be a little bit less of a jerk?
That's an oddly inspiring thought to take away from a movie named after a very minor holiday, don't you think? But slapstick goofiness and all, I'll put Groundhog Day up against any fancy film you care to name, including my beloved Argentine version of The Secret in Their Eyes. Because sometimes, cozy and domestic can be pretty bloomin' profound.
Lake Effect essayist Joanne Weintraub is the former TV critic for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She’s currently a freelance writer and editor.
