(Editor’s Note: Columns often contain opinion and those opinions belong to the author.)
The Miller Theater will be replaying a certain holiday film that is like “A Christmas Carol” but without the ghosts.
Almost two months after Christmas, three weeks after Groundhog Day, and a day after Valentine’s Day, on Sunday, Feb. 15 specifically, the historic theater on Broad Street will be replaying what is essentially a romcom but a dark comedy set on one of those holidays.
Emphasis on the replaying because Bill Murray, as Phil the grumpy, narcissistic Philadelphia weatherman, has to replay Groundhog Day — over and over. He, who begrudgingly has had to go to the Groundhog Day festivities for three years going on his fourth, has to relive the same day repeatedly in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.
The character Phil has to do so partially alongside the famous mammal who predicts upcoming weather with his shadow and who also happens to share the character’s name. Murray has played the jerk you can grow to like in several films, including “Scrooged” and even the more modern “St. Vincent”. His trademark slapstick humor and deadpan delivery are hallmarks within this film.
He does this alongside Andie McDowell’s character, Rita, his television news producer. McDowell’s Southern dialect, laughter, overall likeability, and charm are infectious in the film. Also, she as Rita asserts herself well to counter the overly large personality of Murray’s television weatherman. McDowell is real and relatable.
Chris Elliott plays a somewhat geeky but likable cameraman in the film as well. He has a few funny retorts to counter Phil’s ego here and there.
By the way, back to the aforementioned ghosts (and I don’t mean the kind Murray encountered in “Ghostbusters”, a film he starred in with this film’s director and co-screenwriter Harold Ramis), Phil does not encounter ghosts like Scrooge does in “A Christmas Carol”.
But Murray does take his character through an existential crisis during that same repeating day —something sent from some other supernatural force. At first, we laugh a little as he begins to bend rules and break laws in minor ways because he knows he can get away with it as the same day will restart as if nothing ever happened. However, the comedy becomes truly dark. We see Murray going from occasional manic behavior in the face of everything to a dark depression and troubling acts.
The late Ramis was quoted at one point as saying the character of Phil actually went through a decade total of repeating the same day based on the repeating days shown in the film and what can be inferred. But another source said he said it could be more – as many as two or three decades given the amount of information he memorizes about his eventual girlfriend, visitors, and townsfolk and skills he accrues to impress such as piano playing.
The antics of Murray when he kidnaps a groundhog (which also becomes dark after an initial funny scene) and his confrontations with various townsfolk and visitors keep us laughing.
One standout visitor to the town and in the film is Stephen Tobolowsky as Phil’s initially unrecognized balding former classmate and insurance salesman, Ned. Ned plays the overbearing, long-lost acquaintance you wish would go away. The first time he yells, “Phil!” and runs him to him with a tirade, we know we are in for a treat. Tobolowsky screams a game-show-like “Bing!” when Phil guesses something about himself. His tic of saying, “I’m a right or am I right…right-right-right?” reminds me of something Don Knotts would have done as Barney Fife.
Phil desperately tries to escape the gauche behavior and antics of Ned in Punxsutawney. And because of Phil’s repeating day and his suffering and boredom with it, we get to see him eventually try varying ways to confront old “Needle Nose Ned” as he calls himself. As Rita says when she eventually meets him and Ned tries to join Phil and her, “Let’s not spoil it.”
Next, as an author who has been a guest at Oz festivals and a screenwriter, the comedic aspects of this film inspired an idea and synopsis/potential treatment of a film for me – a sequel to the film. In my idea for “Groundhog Day II: Somewhere Under the Storm Clouds”, a tornado is threatening an Oz festival. And the news team from the first film is sent to cover the event and the weather – a number of years after the first film. (spoiler alert) Where Phil is more amiable after his past experiences and marriage to Rita (only in this sequel idea), she has grown disenchanted with being a news producer and the types of stories she is forced by the network to produce.
When she realizes they have to cover an Oz festival, she almost loses it. She hates “The Wizard of Oz” and anything related to it. Because of her negative attitude and lashing out, she, too, is put through a repeating day but one at the Oz festival she has loathed.
In the sequel, instead of Sonny and Cher singing “I Got You Babe” on the clock radio in the Bed and Breakfast room to Phil’s dismay, it will be Judy Garland singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” on a digital device tuned to IHeart Radio. Rita will throw the device across the room! Another inspiration for this idea was meeting non-Oz-fans coupled with big Oz fans at events and how they were dragged there. Some of the non-Oz-fans could be quite grumpy about Oz. I envision comedic exchanges and retorts with Oz fans and their classic quotes and Rita’s reactions and suffering.
Back to the film at hand, aside from the comedy and at times working in concert with it, we eventually become vested in Phil trying to appeal romantically to McDowell’s Rita.
Rita is no push-over and has grown tired of Phil’s crap during the first part of their day together. It takes him many, many consecutive repeat days of getting to know her. And even with the repetition, Phil often gets this wrong. That is sure to appeal to all those who had a guy stumble his way through a relationship.
This columnist is no, as they say in pop culture, Ms. Lonely Hearts, but you may just want to plan a perfect romantic dinner with a little gift for Valentine’s Day itself but also tell the one you love you have a second date planned for the day after on Feb. 15 at 2 p.m. at the Miller. Doors open at 1 p.m.
But also tell your date you have a second date planned for Feb. 15 at the Miller… wait… hey… as enjoyable as writing this column was and hopefully your reading it was, let’s not start that again!
Ron Baxley, Jr. is a veteran journalist who has been a published author for 34 years and is working on writing a Southern-set television series. His latest satirical Southern fantasy Oz book, “O.Z. Diggs the Fifth Estate” is the third in the O.Z. Diggs VII series. For additional columns and fiction, go to https://substack.com/@ronbaxleyjr . Contact him via ronbaxleyjr.com .
