GROUNDHOG DAY: The True Excitement of a Large Squirrel Predicting the Weather

Groundhog Day (1993) – Directed by Harold Ramis – Starring Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, Chris Elliott, Stephen Tobolowsky, and Brian Doyle-Murray.

The pleasant irony of GROUNDHOG DAY is that rewatching the same movie over and over again never gets old, unlike reliving the same day over and over again gets old for Phil Connors inside the movie. GROUNDHOG DAY is one of the best Bill Murray vehicles we’ve got, and one of the most rewatchable movies around. Every time I watch it I get sucked right back in to the story. It’s one of those movies where knowing all the lines somehow makes watching it even better.

Phil Connors is a perfect Bill Murray vehicle. He’s a Pittsburgh weatherman, successful but not extraordinarily so, which allows him to have an ego but not to big time very many people. Despite being a weatherman for a major city’s nightly newscast, most people don’t seem to know who he is or aren’t overly impressed by it. He gets to be successful enough to think he’s a bigger deal than he is, which is perfect for Murray’s caustic attitude.

The true genius of GROUNDHOG DAY is that it takes the dour feeling of the mundane, everyday existence that many people feel and exacerbates it through science fiction. There’s a scene in the film where Connors, feeling trapped by having to live the same day over and over again, laments his case to two working class Joes in a bowling alley. He asks them to imagine how awful life would be if every day of their life played out exactly the same; for Connors, of course, success allows him to have a life full of different experiences and to feel good about himself, but these two regular guys already feel like every day is the same day. It’s telling that we see them in the morning at the diner and then later at the bowling alley, their lives marked by what seems like routine – not only do they have to wake up every day to perform the same job, the inference is that they’re regulars in their off-work hours, too.

Connors is forced to live Groundhog Day over and over again, and director Harold Ramis does an outstanding job of using the repetitive nature of the days for both comedy and drama. While GROUNDHOG never becomes maudlin, it doesn’t shy away from the shifting moods Connors experiences during his seemingly eternal damnation. Ramis uses the quick advancement of days (concentrating on a singular scene or moment) to help build momentum, and intercuts this with elongated scenes that are most important to Phil.

The mood is always kept relatively light, with Phil in a state of not-so-quiet desperation. His shifting moods echo those of the rest of us who might feel like we’re trapped in the grind – there are moments or periods of time when you feel really good because you find something new in the routine to occupy your thoughts and others when you feel incredibly low because whatever highs you might have are always temporary in the face of the similarity of your days.

GROUNDHOG is also a rather clever film in terms of playing stereotypes versus individual personalities. Everyone in this film is marked as a type until Phil gets to know them. Over the course of the film, both seen by us and taking place off-camera, Phil gets to know seemingly everyone in town.

Which brings up the question – why does the calendar eventually roll over into a new day for Phil? The easy answer, of course, is that it’s because he’s proven himself to be a good guy who wins true love with his new producer, Rita (Andie MacDowell). His final day in town sees him as a selfless individual who runs around helping everyone, but why do we think this is anything more than Phil’s latest phase? He’s used this eternal repetition to get laid, to to get rich, to kill himself … he’s been happy, depressed, deranged … why is Selfless Phil any different? Why are we to think this isn’t just another phase? And why does the film reward Selfless Phil?

Well, it’s because the film wants to enforce the idea that being selfless is the right way to live. If you do that, after all, everyone likes you and Andie MacDowell wants to date you. But what if it was something else?

The film doggedly doesn’t tell us who or what is responsible for life being stuck, as Phil (and thus the movie) is more concerned with what is happening instead of why. Phil does see a shrink about what’s going on, but the shrink is completely useless. He never goes to visit a holy man or scholar to attempt to discover what’s going on. He simply deals with the physical reality of what’s happening, meaning that some mornings he runs from Ned (Stephen Tobolowsky), some mornings he talks to Ned, and some mornings he punches Ned in the face. (Every time I see Tobolowsky, wherever it is, I instantly hear Murray saying, “Ned? Ned Ryerson?” and then see him clocking Ned in the face.) On the final Groundhog Day, it’s revealed that Phil has bought all sorts of life insurance from Ned, which leads me to my supposition that GROUNDHOG DAY is a much darker movie than the tone of the film indicates.

What if Phil’s life doesn’t become unstuck because he’s selfless? What if Phil’s life becomes unstuck because the town has finally gotten everything out of him it ever could?

On that final day, we see Phil selflessly giving himself to the townsfolk. He saves a boy from falling out of a tree, saves a man from choking, buys insurance from Ned, and crafts a Groundhog Day report of such eloquence that all other news cameras have turned to him. At the night’s celebratory party, seemingly everyone wants to thank Phil for something he’s done for them. He’s gotten to know just about everyone and become a positive force in their lives. What else is there for him to do?

I’d like to suggest that a second possibility for how to read the ending of the film is much more sinister than Phil simply becoming selfless. Perhaps the town of Punxsutawney has been holding Phil here against his will until he has served the town’s interests. What does Phil say to Rita at the end of the movie as they walk out of the bed and breakfast?

“Let’s live here.”

Knowing that Phil has been assimilated into the town, Punxsutawney lets time move forward again. It no longer needs to keep Phil trapped because Phil has succumbed to Stockholm Syndrome and embraced the town he once shunned. Phil has convinced himself he now wants to never leave, after perhaps multiple lifetimes of not being able to leave. The skills Phil learns – playing the piano, learning foreign languages, becoming familiar with great literary works – suggests a far longer period of time in Punxsutawney than the film shows us as definitely having happened.

This interpretation makes GROUNDHOG DAY a bleaker, but more powerful film. Where The Matrix indicates that your life is someone else’s construct that you’ve been unknowingly hoodwinked into believing, GROUNDHOG DAY argues that it’s your own willingness to buy into the grander narrative that “saves” you. Unlike The Matrix, GROUNDHOG DAY also allows both interpretations to be equally true. Phil really could be rewarded for becoming selfless, but it’s telling to me that all of his selfless acts benefit the same people: the citizens of Punxsutawney. We don’t see Phil correcting his past sins or connecting with people he’s once wronged (except for Needlenose Ned), but rather becoming a servant to a bunch of people he doesn’t know, in a place he doesn’t like coming.

I love GROUNDHOG DAY. It is, without question, one of my all-time favorite movies. I love the idea that, given enough time, we can all become good people who are willing to help others.

But there’s this stray tickle in the back of my brain that says there’s a darker side to the idyllic quaintness of that groundhog and the town he calls home. And if that’s the case, then GROUNDHOG DAY just might be the single greatest horror movie ever committed to film.

SCROOGED: I’m Sure Charles Dickens Would Have Wanted to See Her Nipples

Scrooged (1988) – Directed by Richard Donner – Starring Bill Murray, Karen Allen, John Forsythe, Bobcat Goldthwait, Carol Kane, David Johansen, Robert Mitchum, Alfre Woodard, John Glover, Jamie Farr, Buddy Hackett, and Brian Doyle Murray.

There are lots of adaptations of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, but none of them scream the 1980s as loud as SCROOGED. Bill Murray, Karen Allen, John Forsythe, Bobcat Goldthwait, the Buster Poindexter guy, and the Solid Gold dancers all had a big decade, and they all come together in a rather entertaining comedy about a TV executive producing a live Christmas Carol broadcast who simultaneously has a Christmas Carol experience himself.

Frank Cross (Murray) is a complete dick, and runs his network like his own personal kingdom, despite the fact that it’s Robert Mitchum’s kingdom. He hates Christmas, hates subordinates, and hates himself. He drinks a lot and insults and bullies everyone he comes across. What’s nice about Murray playing the Scrooge character is his relative youth. Frank Cross isn’t a man at the end of his life, but in the middle of it. Ebeneezer not only knows he’s a jerk, but has suffered a lifetime of becoming increasingly miserable and isolated so his pump has been primed for a change. Cross is half his life from that moment; even though he’s been separated from his One True Love, Claire (Karen Allen), Frank is still a man climbing the social and economic ladder.

Despite being set in the present and despite not using the names of the Dickens’ characters, SCROOGED follows the general pattern of A Christmas Carol pretty closely – Frank is visited by a ghost of an ex-collegae, Lew (Forsythe), who warns him that three ghosts will visit him this night. The Ghosts come in expected order, and Frank is . The Ghost of Christmas Past (Johansen) is an incredible boor and cloaks himself in the garb of a taxi driver. (Not THE Taxi Driver, but a taxi driver.) As much as I dislike this character, the decision to start Frank off with a gruff ghost is a good one, as Frank needs someone who’s totally self-assured and doesn’t depend on him for anything. That’s the Ghost of Christmas Past – unshaven, bad teeth, cackling laugh … this is nearly as far out of Frank’s comfort zone as you can get. The connection between Past and Frank’s early days is pretty clear; Past represents the working class life Frank left behind. They witness Frank’s dad (Brian Doyle Murray) giving him a cut of meat for Christmas and while the ghost is appalled, Frank defends his father’s act as a good lesson.

There’s always a lot of weight placed on the Christmas Past ghost, as his visitation creates the back story for Scrooge. Past shows Frank his childhood, his early days as a low-level employee at the TV network’s Christmas party, happy times with Claire, and their eventual break-up, when Frank chooses his career (a dinner date with his boss, Lew) over dinner with their friends. Claire is heartbroken, but Frank is too career-obsessed to care. That they have this chat as Frank is in costume, playing Frisbee the Dog on a kid’s show, only serves to enforce the disconnect between Frank and Claire. It’s an absurd moment but it’s played perfectly straight by Allen and Murray.

And let’s just stop here for a moment to appreciate how awesome Karen Allen is as an actress. She’s plays off Murray as effortlessly and perfectly here as she does with Harrison Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Peter Reigert in Animal House, and Jeff Bridges in Starman. (Though, admittedly, it’s been awhile since I’ve seen that last one – feel free to call me out if I’m off-base.) All four of those actors require a different set of skills from Allen, and she usually only has a small amount of scenes to put those skills into action.

Christmas Past is followed by Christmas Present (Carol Kane), who continually smacks Frank around. She takes Frank to visit his brother James (John Murray), replacing the traditional role of nephew. The result plays the same, however; his brother laments Frank’s absence from his life and gets a trivia question about Gilligan’s Island wrong as Frank watches in disgust. (Not enough people give Dickens credit for his influence on Sherwood Schwartz sitcoms.) We also get a visit to his assistant Grace’s (Alfre Woodward) house, where he discovers that Grace has a kid who hasn’t talked since his father died.

Back to the network studio and we see Frank awaiting the visit of the third ghost as the live broadcast of A Christmas Carol (with Buddy Hackett as Scrooge) begins. Christmas Future gets only a quick appearance, sticking around just long enough to show Frank Grace’s mute son holed up in a mental institution and his own funeral.

Frank decides to change and his born again sequence is one of the greats. Murray plays it as much like a man coming off the rails as a man with a new focus in his life, really doing an outstanding job of walking that thin line between inspired and insane. He interrupts the live broadcast of A Christmas Carol to deliver a heart-felt plea for people to connect with their families. It’s a really great, really fresh version of the story, and Murray is completely convincing as a man unburdened by the weight he wouldn’t even admit he was carrying.

There’s plenty of great supporting work turned in by Bobcat Goldthwait, Robert Mitchum, and John Glover, yet for all of this, SCROOGED is merely a good movie and not a great one. One of the reasons why Scrooge is such a great character is because he is at the end of his life. He’s old, isolated, and bitter, and his trip with the ghosts reveals a man who’s life has gone wrong, and whose conversion speaks to the idea that it’s never too late to change. Frank Cross, on the other hand, is an unlikable lout in the middle of his life’s journey, drunk with power and not yet isolated from the world, and as great as Murray is, his descents into weepy territory don’t carry any weight to it. I’m not sure whether to laugh at the absurdity of his waterworks or feel empathy for his realizations.

I like SCROOGED but this was the first time I’d ever watched the entire movie in one piece; I enjoyed Donner’s film but I can’t say I feel any remorse at not having watched it previous to now. It’s a good movie but it’s ultimately a diversion rather than a film that sticks with me.

Be sure to check out the Holiday Review Index for all the Holiday-themed reviews to be found at Atomic Anxiety.

NATIONAL LAMPOON’S CHRISTMAS VACATION: We’re Gonna Have the Happiest Christmas Since Bing Crosby Tap-Danced with Danny F*cking Kaye

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989) – Directed by Jeremiah S. Chechik – Starring Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo, Randy Quaid, Juliette Lewis, Johnny Galecki, John Randolph, Diane Ladd, E.G. Marshall, Doris Roberts, William Hickey, Mae Questel, Miriam Flynn, Nicholas Guest, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Brian Doyle Murray.

I miss John Hughes.

For all of the jokes and all of the inappropriateness of NATIONAL LAMPOON’S CHRISTMAS VACATION, what makes this a fantastic movie is the scene where Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) gets trapped in the attic while the rest of the extended family goes off Christmas shopping. Digging through old chests to find clothes to keep him warm, Clark puts on some of his mother’s furs and gloves when he discovers old 8 MM reels of Christmas holidays from his youth. Despite being trapped in the attic, despite the cold, Clark watches the reels and becomes lost in the memories. It’s clear that Clark desires an idealized holiday, but even in these old reels we don’t see it, and this makes Clark an incredibly tragic, rather than simply nostalgic, character. Clark isn’t simply trying to recapture his youth in his quest for the perfect Christmas – he’s still trying to have a perfect Christmas, and he believes – he really believes – that now that it’s HIS Christmas, that he’s the breadwinner, that everyone is coming to his house, that he’s in charge – he can make this happen.

But he can’t, and his wife Ellen (Beverly D’Angelo) knows it. “Sparky,” as she affectionately calls her husband, has a tendency to build up his expectations to such a level that no one can live up to them. Ellen is trying to protect her husband from himself, but she knows that he’s going to go through with everything and instead of stomping on his optimism, she steps back and lets him go for it – but she’s always ready to step in and offer him some comfort when he needs it.

The on-screen chemistry between Chase and D’Angelo is fascinating to watch, because they’re amazing together without really being amazing together. Theirs is a very subtle relationship, with Clark sometimes seemingly oblivious to just how great his wife is to him, and for him. Clark repeatedly gets lost in the quest for the perfect moment as Ellen subtly stands by to prop him up.

And that’s the lesson Clark learns in CHRISTMAS VACATION – forget the postcard moments and forget trying to make reality live up to your lofty expectations and just enjoy the moments for what they are. Families are crazy but they’re yours, so enjoy them while you can, even if they do belittle your attempts at installing 25,000 twinkling Christmas lights on your house, show up unexpectedly and dump their RV’s toxic sewage into the storm drain in front of your house, kidnap your boss, trap you in the attic, burn down your tree, and guilt you into buying Christmas gifts for your kids because you haven’t worked in seven years.

The main plot sees Clark’s parents (John Randolph, Diane Ladd) and Ellen’s parents Art and Frances (E.G. Marshall, Doris Roberts) coming to Clark’s house for Christmas. The move forces the Griswold children, Rusty and Audrey (played this time around by Johnny Galecki and Juliette Lewis), to move into the same room and inexplicably share a bed. Unlike the increasingly insipid Focker movies, CHRISTMAS VACATION never stops being Clark’s movie, yet all of the parents have their moments. Clark’s dad displays some of the same overly-positive traits that Clark does, but he’s also more realistic, trying to let Clark down easy that the attempt at a perfect Christmas has turned into an unmitigated disaster. Clark’s mom is this steadying influence in the background, and you can see some of the same quiet, supportive qualities in her that you see in Ellen. Ellen’s mom and dad are the much more sarcastic couple, with E.G. Marshall getting off some subtly vicious one-liners.

When Clark’s attempt to light the house fails, Art sarcastically deadpans, “Beautiful, Clark,” and Frances caustically jibes, “Talk about pissing your money away. I hope you kids see what a silly waste of resources this was.” Audrey lovingly comes to her father’s defense: “He worked really hard, Grandma.” Art reminds her, “So do washing machines.”

Or his best line of the movie; after Clark has managed to get the Christmas lights working (thanks to Ellen unknowingly flipping the right switch; Clark plays no role in getting them to finally turn on), Art reminds him, “They’re not twinkling.”

“I know that, Art,” Clark replies, defeat creeping into his voice.

This attitudinal conflict lies at the heart of CHRISTMAS VACATION; Clark is presented as a sort of Last Man Standing when it comes to believing in Christmas (one of his co-workers refers to him as “the last family man”), confronted on all sides by those who’ve lost the spirit of the season. John Hughes, at heart, is an optimist swimming in a pessimistic world, and Clark personifies this to the nth degree. It’s fitting that his negativity builds like a pressure cooker throughout the film, finally being set off when his Christmas bonus gets delivered and instead of a check, it’s an enrollment in the Jelly of the Month Club. There’s a few outbursts along the way, of course, but they’re small and self-contained. Whenever things turn for the better, Clark is instantly willing to let all bygones be bygones, embracing anyone and everyone in his attempt to push the perfect Christmas through.

Splendidly, CHRISTMAS VACATION doesn’t force any idyllic finish – Cousin Eddie (Randy Quaid) kidnaps Clark’s boss (Brian Doyle Murray), who realizes what a cheap prick he was by refusing to give out Christmas bonuses, the SWAT teams breaks into the house, Uncle Lewis lights a stogie, igniting the toxic sewage and blasting a plastic Santa Claus into the sky as Aunt Bethany leads them in a chorus of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

It’s an imperfectly perfect ending to a film about an imperfectly perfect holiday. NATIONAL LAMPOON’S CHRISTMAS VACATION is a splendid movie, and serves as an antithesis, of sorts, to Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Where the Grinch believes the worst about Christmas, Clark believes the best, yet both are surrounded by people who believe the opposite of their own yuletide attitudes; in the end, Christmas brings both communities together.

Be sure to check out the Holiday Review Index for all the Holiday-themed reviews to be found at Atomic Anxiety.