From a reader (by the way, I love local hero):

Jonah:
Contra to Andrew Stuttaford, I found Groundhog Day (one of my favorite movies) to be nearly joyous. Recall the scene early on in which Murray is talking to two semi-drunks and he asks them what would they think of having to exist by doing the exact same thing, day after day, with no change, and one of them replies “That sorta sums up my life…”
But then, much later in the film, Murray is resigned to his lot and is reading a book (he’s almost surrounded by books) and hears some piano music on the radio – and this expression comes over his face of complete discovery. Everything is open to him in terms of internal human potential. He immerses himself in piano lessons, in reading serious books. He becomes a better person – not simply more knowledgeable and sophisticated. He makes the best of the hand he’s been dealt. He goes through a nearly complete cycle of understanding life: confusion, having fun with it, despair, resignation, fulfillment. And it’s damned funny.
And two other pretty decent comedies in the 80s were LA Story and Local Hero – and please, no groans because the latter is supposedly one of Al Gore’s faves. It’s brilliant, and most liberals simply don’t understand what’s going on in it, and I’d wager that Algore missed the point as well.