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Our existence in a comedy!

Groundhog Day (1993)
This is supposed to be a comedy but ended up becoming immortalised as a movie with highly philosophical content. It is a story of an arrogant TV weatherman (Bill Murray as Phil Connors) who thinks he is God's gift to mankind who ridicules and belittles everything and everyone around him. He is sent to cover the all American celebration of Groundhog Day. Just for information, Groundhog Day is age old tradition which is celebrated on February 2nd to gauge whether following 6 weeks into spring is going to snow. Traditionally, the Groundhog is said to burrow out of his burrow after hibernation to look for his shadow. If he see his shadow, he would retreat to sleep indicating it would be a long winter. Conversely, if his shadow is not seen, it would mean cloudy skies and early spring!

After finishing his stint, he and his team (producer, Andie MacDowell, his love interest and cameraman) had to stay overnight due to blizzard. The following day and the following days, Phil Connors get trapped in a time loop. Everyday, he gets up to the alarm clock blaring the tune of Sonny and Cher's 'I got you babe' to the morning of 2nd February again and again and again.

Initially Phil is confused and frustrated but later enjoys it. He uses his previous day's experience for his own benefit like luring his victims to satisfy his hedonistic desires. Slowly he gets bored and attempts suicide as well as commit crime just to start all over sharply at 6 the next morning.
With time, he attains realisation. He improves himself by learning skills and builds a meaningful relationship with Rita, his producer. In the true fashion of Hollywood, Phil manages to break his time trap when he manages to woo Rita and she agrees to spend the night with him! Only then it was February 3 for him.


Many spiritual leaders hailed this film as the most religious movie ever made. Believers of the Buddhist teachings profess that Phil's trap in February 2nd repeatedly is a symbolism of births and re-births (samsara). With self-improvement, one can attain nirvana. The rabbi correlates the recurrent days as birth to serve mankind for betterment of mankind. Even Christians and members of Falon Gong see parallelism between their teachings and the storyline- that one can learn from mistake and there is always hope.
Incidentally, Harold Ramis (a co-writer of the story; he is one of the trio of Ghostbusters) is a non practising born Jewish now atheist who married a Buddhist. The existentialism comparison of the story is news to the writers who just wanted to entertain their audience with their brand of comedy.
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