EDITOR’S NOTE:OK, campers, rise and shine! It’s become a Groundhog’s Day tradition around here to run this cover story from the February 14, 2005, issue of National Review over and over and over . . .
Here’s a line you’ll either recognize or you won’t: “This is one time where television really fails to capture the true excitement of a large squirrel predicting the weather.” If you don’t recognize this little gem, you’ve either never seen Groundhog Day or you’re not a fan of what is, in my opinion, one of the best films of the last 40 years. As the day of the groundhog again approaches, it seems only fitting to celebrate what will almost undoubtedly join It’s a Wonderful Life in the pantheon of America’s most uplifting, morally serious, enjoyable, and timeless movies.
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When I set out to write this article, I thought it’d be fun to do a quirky homage to an offbeat flick, one I think is brilliant as both comedy and moral philosophy. But while doing what I intended to be cursory research — how much reporting do you need for a review of a twelve-year-old movie that plays constantly on cable? — I discovered that I wasn’t alone in my interest. In the years since its release the film has been taken up by Jews, Catholics, Evangelicals, Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans, and followers of the oppressed Chinese Falun Gong movement. Meanwhile, the Internet brims with weighty philosophical treatises on the deep Platonist, Aristotelian, and existentialist themes providing the skin and bones beneath the film’s clown makeup. On National Review Online’s group blog, The Corner, I asked readers to send in their views on the film. Over 200 e-mails later I had learned that countless professors use it to teach ethics and a host of philosophical approaches. Several pastors sent me excerpts from sermons in which Groundhog Day was the central metaphor. And dozens of committed Christians of all denominations related that it was one of their most cherished movies.
When the Museum of Modern Art in New York debuted a film series on “The Hidden God: Film and Faith” two years ago, it opened with Groundhog Day. The rest of the films were drawn from the ranks of turgid and bleak intellectual cinema, including standards from Ingmar Bergman and Roberto Rossellini. According to the New York Times, curators of the series were stunned to discover that so many of the 35 leading literary and religious scholars who had been polled to pick the series entries had chosen Groundhog Day that a spat had broken out among the scholars over who would get to write about the film for the catalogue. In a wonderful essay for the Christian magazine Touchstone, theology professor Michael P. Foley wrote that Groundhog Day is “a stunning allegory of moral, intellectual, and even religious excellence in the face of postmodern decay, a sort of Christian-Aristotelian Pilgrim’s Progress for those lost in the contemporary cosmos.” Charles Murray, author of Human Accomplishment, has cited Groundhog Day more than once as one of the few cultural achievements of recent times that will be remembered centuries from now. He was quoted in The New Yorker declaring, “It is a brilliant moral fable offering an Aristotelian view of the world.”
I know what you’re thinking: We’re talking about the movie in which Bill Murray tells a big rat sitting on his lap, “Don’t drive angry,” right? Yep, that’s the one. You might like to know that the rodent in question is actually Jesus — at least that’s what film historian Michael Bronski told the Times. “The groundhog is clearly the resurrected Christ, the ever-hopeful renewal of life at springtime, at a time of pagan-Christian holidays. And when I say that the groundhog is Jesus, I say that with great respect.”
That may be going overboard, but something important is going on here. What is it about this ostensibly farcical film about a wisecracking weatherman that speaks to so many on such a deep spiritual level?
Wonderful column.
It reminds me of Walker Percy's The Moviegoer with its gorgeous epilogue.
A propos of nothing I also loved Lost in Translation. I watched it recently and discovered that it is the story of my life as I try to deal with liberals and our conversations are always at cross purposes like the title of this movie.
Groundhog Day is one of the few movies I watch repeatedly. I've been telling friends and family for years that it is almost inexplicitly profound on some spiritual or religous plane. I had no idea it had such a following. Thanks for the review, Johah. It was a treat.
"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your father in heaven is perfect." How could a real person living in an imperfect world attain perfection? What would that even mean? To me, this movie is about that. The Bill Murray character doesn't become more solemn or pious. He simply submits to the ennobling possibilities in the human condition-- to living in the moment--- to find oneself by losing oneself-- the evil of the day is sufficient. I could go on....
I've watched the movie "Groundhog Day" several times and it's also one of my favourites. It always very much reminds me of this text:
"Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary. So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith" (Galatians 6.7-10).
Jonah - thanks for making me think, but I have to say there is no amount of argument that could entice me to alter my assessment that Groundhog Day was one of the worst excuses for a movie ever made, outside anything by Michael Moore and the Godfather series (what is Italian for dung?). I do not see it sorry. We will just have to agree to disagree, like conservatives, with candor and good will.
Also, I do not think that Meryl Streep can not act, she can only cry in accents, with no ability to display real emotion. Nor can Robert DiNero act, outside of comedy (loved Midnight Run, but he did drag down Yaphet Kotto) and he was good as himself (illiterate punk New Yorker in Godfellas.
No need to get nasty, but no she can not act. Poor accents and whining is not emotive acting. Next you will tell me Colbert, Conan, Leno, Stewart and Seinfeld are funny - past. It is a sorry state of the entertainment in this country what we are will be force fed and willing to accept as "quality." At least when I enjoy something of a marginal value, I accept as such and do not try to raise it to a faux level of "art."
Green cheese . . .really? Based on your juvenile response, do you still suffer from acne?
What I will tell you next is that people who drink red wine with poultry dishes are not exhibiting independent thinking and superior taste, but ignorance. Contrarian vituperation is served best with wit. So far, you have displayed none.
How sad - reduce to ad hominem attacks mixing of analysis. You really need to get some zit cream.
It would in a stratified and pretentious pseudo intellectual subculture of the alleged elites to make the snap statement regarding the pairing of this wine with that protein, but I would think that a pretentious individual such as yourself, no doubt an aficionado of the allegedly “cutting edge” restaurants of the two coasts would know that such rules, most of which are reasonable, are being challenged and defied. That is hardly the same thing as pointing out that what passes for quality out of Hollywood and statements regarding who is considered talented is dictated by faux elites who are products of a debased education system that has indoctrinated not educated in critical thinking regarding all matters of things. Remember this is the same faux elite that think that rotten animal carcasses are “edgy” art or that think the post modern (Stalinist) architecture is the future. (Compare the Vatican to say, any of the EU build structures, I will pass on the modern pretense for “edgy.”)
Seriously? Alright you are either playing Devil's Advocate or being a troll!
Come on. I mean, really . . . come on!
You can have your opinion on Groundhog Day as it does have a spirit of redemption but it's also a light romantic comedy piece. But are you really going to spit on the brilliant Godfather saga?
2. Yes it is a story of redemption, but the production and the alleged performance by the two talentless leads is both trite and vapid.
3. What is labeled by the industry as "romantic comedy" is neither and is like this movie, poorly crafted and executed.
4. The Godfather is blodding, pretenious, boring, and overrate waste of a production and an obscene waste of time. With exception of the first movie's costuming and props, the series is sporcizia (Italian for dung). Marlon Brandon was joke in the first movie, which was a waste of his overrated talent; and Pacino and DeNiro were horrible.
Merely accepting ill-formed conventional assesemtns is not critical thinking and I prefer to use my intellect.
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