Groundhog Day: Difference between revisions

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He wakes up the next morning to find it's still Groundhog Day. Everyone goes on ''exactly'' like they did the previous day, with only him aware of it. Surprised, he goes through the motions, still gets stuck in Punxsutawney, and wakes up the next morning to find it's still Groundhog Day, ''again''.

 

'''Bing!'''

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* [[Groundhog Day Loop]].

** And thus is indirectly half of the trope namer for [[Groundhog Peggy Sue]].

 

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* [[And I Must Scream]]: Being stuck reliving the same day over and over for ''years'' tends to not be fun.

* [[Bachelor Auction]]: Occurs near the end (during {{spoiler|Phil's last "Groundhog's Day" reliving}}).

* [[Big Eater]]: Phil's discovered the greatest diet plan ever.

* [[Bungled Suicide]]: Several of these, all committed by Phil after he decides there's [[Nothing Left to Do But Die]]. Even though each one ''does'' result in his death, they all count as bungled by virtue of the fact that they all fail to kill him for good and Phil always wakes up at 6 AM of Groundhog Day all over again the morning afterwards.

* [[Butt Monkey]]: Both Larry and Phil, with each other.

** Let's be honest, though: this is, in short, [[Character Development]]: [[The Movie]].

* [[Chekhov's Gag]]: to the question "Will you be checking out today, Mr. Connors?"

'''Phil (Day two):''' Chance of departure today... Eighty percent?... seventy-five to eighty? }}

* [[Clock King]]: Phil initially uses this power for evil (i.e. stealing money from a armored truck). He later uses it for more benevolent purposes, becoming a sort of guardian angel to everybody.

* [[Convenient Slow Dance]]: Although by that point, Phil is [[Genre Savvy]] enough to have deliberately arranged it.

** And the best part of this? He wasn't even really "arranging" it, and certainly not in any attempt to take advantage of Rita. [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|The dance and all that follows is his "reward" for being able to earn genuine admiration and love from both Rita and the citizens of Punxsutawney under no selfish pretenses.]]

* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: Phil, ''par excellence''.

* [[Death Montage]]

* [[Despair Event Horizon]]: Phil is eventually driven to the depths of suicidal despair by the endless repetition of February 2nd. Then, he's driven into even further depths of suicidal despair by the fact that suicide ''doesn't work''. Interestingly, it's when he's at his lowest that he eventually hits on simply telling Rita the truth of what's happening to him... and things begin to improve from that point on.

* [[Dumbass DJ]]: Say it with us now: "Okay, campers, rise and shine, and don't forget your booties 'cause it's cooooold out there today! What is this, Miami Beach?!"

* [[Earn Your Happy Ending]]: {{spoiler|When Phil turns completely into a nice guy, he is finally able to wake up to a brand new day.}}

* [[Epiphanic Prison]]: The time loop can be thought of as this.

* [[Every Car Is a Pinto]]: Parodied. When Phil's car (with him in it) falls off a cliff, another character proclaims unconvincingly that he could still be alive. The car then immediately explodes.

* [[Eye Take]]: Used to full effect by Bill Murray.

* [[Flipping the Bird]]: Phil has an unusual way of doing a countdown with fingers....

** The day when he tells the truth to Rita and his final day in the [[Groundhog Day Loop]] are merged in this version; he wakes up with the same woman to whom he has explained his situation, who hasn't forgotten as he expected and keeps believing him. Must make for an interesting relationship...

* [[A God Am I]]:

'''Phil:''' I'm ''a'' god. I'm not ''the'' God. ...[[On Second Thought|I don't think]]. }}

* [[Gosh Dang It to Heck]]: "Don't you tell me you don't remember me, because I sure as heckfire remember you!"

* [[The Hedonist]]: Phil becomes this in some of the early cycles. When he realizes that no tomorrow means no consequence, he takes the opportunity to indulge in unhealthy food, wild behavior, and bedding various women through save-scumming.

* [[Heroic BSOD]]: While on camera:

** [[It Got Worse|A few loops later...]]

* [[Hope Spot]]: Invoked by Larry after the results of Phil's initial [[Heroic BSOD]].

'''Larry:''' ...well, no, probably not now. }}

* [[High Concept]]: Man is forced to relive one day over and over. A simple concept that allows for so many scenarios.

* [[Ignored Confession]]: During the loop where Phil demonstrates his intimate knowledge of Punxsutawney's residents to Rita and she stays in his room with him, [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|he confesses his love for her and kisses her on the cheek]], but she doesn't hear any of it due to drifting off towards sleep. His awakening the next day marks his decision to use the loop to better himself.

* [[I'm Thinking It Over]]:

'''Phil''': I'm thinking... }}

* [[Incessant Music Madness]]: THEN PUT YOUR LIL' HAND IN MINE... ♫

* [[Inherently Funny Words]]: Gobbler's Knob, site of the groundhog ceremony. It's a real place in Punxsutawney, PA, too. It just doesn't look like it does in the movie because it wasn't filmed in the real Punxsutawney. Punxsutawney... heck, that's a funny word, too!

* [[Instant Expert]]: Not to the audience, since Phil puts plenty of hours in, but he certainly appears this way to other characters.

'''Phil:''' Not before today. }}

'''Mrs. Lancaster:''' I don't think so, but I could check with the kitchen. }}

* [[Jerkass]]: Phil most obviously, Ned somewhat less intentionally. It's also made pretty clear that Larry's a bit of a jerk as well.

** [[Roger Ebert]] mentioned in his Great Movies retrospective of the film that it is Murray's deadpan-Jerkassery that is vital to the film, in that if a lesser actor went [[Large Ham]] with it, the film would not have worked.

* [[Karma Houdini]]: At least initially; Phil exploits the time loop to do whatever he wants to whomever he wants whenever he wants and avoid the consequences, and ends up repeatedly robbing, seducing, attacking, cheating and manipulating the townsfolk seemingly without punishment. Over the course of the movie, however, it becomes pretty clear that the time loop ''is'' his punishment, not only for his actions in the movie but for his whole Jerkass nature before the day began. A deleted idea that the loop was the result of a curse from a jilted ex-lover underscores this point.

* [[Kick the Dog]]: Phil towards the beginning of the movie.

* [[Manipulative Bastard]]: Phil becomes one when initially trying to seduce Rita (see [[Save Scumming]]).

* [[Men Don't Cry]]: After Rita says that the perfect man for her wouldn't be afraid of crying, Phil responds with, "This is a ''man'' we're talking about, right?" And he ''himself'' [[Subverted Trope|subverts this belief]] later when he finally [[Manly Tears|learns how precious life is]] through his futile attempts to save a homeless old man from dying of old age.

* [[Mistaken for Gay]]: Phil pulls a [[Mistaken for Gay]] on Ned one day just to scare him off.

* [[Montage]]: Used effectively a couple of times.

* [[Off the Rails]]: Phil tries this by {{spoiler|kidnapping the groundhog, going on a car chase, and getting ''both'' of them killed.}} [[Foregone Conclusion|It doesn't work.]]

* [[The Power of Love]]: Only by winning Rita's heart does Phil break the time loop.

* [[Ring Ring CRUNCH]]: Phil does this to his clock radio that won't stop playing "I Got You Babe" every morning at 6:00.

** When he's finally out of the loop, the song starts at a totally different part with the alarm, and the radio show host says, "[[Irony|Oh no. Not again.]]"

* [[Save Scumming]]: An unusual non-video-game example of this trope.

* [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong]]: The many errands Phil runs as he spends longer and longer in the loop.

* [[Snow Means Love]]: Several times. Alternately, exactly once. Time travel.

* [[Talk About the Weather]]: Mrs. Lancaster tries to make small talk with Phil by talking about the weather -- unfortunately, he's pissed off and he's a weatherman.

'''Phil Connors:''' We may catch a break and that blizzard's gonna blow right by us. All of this moisture coming up out of the south by midday is probably gonna push on to the east of us and at high altitudes it's gonna crystallize and probably give us what we call snow. Probably will be some accumulation but here in Punxsutawney our high is gonna get up to about 30 today, teens tonight. Chance of precipitation about 20% today, 20% tomorrow. Did you want to talk about the weather or were you just making chitchat? }}

* [[Understatement]]: Phil tells Rita that "My years are not advancing as fast as you might think."

* [[Viewers Are Goldfish]]: Subverted by this film and many others that use [[Groundhog Day Loop]] plot devices, as each repetition has variations.

* [[What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic]]: After the film's debut, the director was called several times by various religious groups, all claiming he was secretly one of them.

* [[When the Clock Strikes Twelve]]: It's 6am in this case. True, Phil relives Groundhog Day proper every day, but it's from 6am February 2nd to 5:59am February 3rd. Lampshaded once when Rita expects him to "turn into a pumpkin or something" at 12 midnight.

* [[You Can't Fight Fate]]:

'''Phil:''' [[Tear Jerker|Not today.]] }}

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{{reflist}}

[[Category:Roger Ebert Great Movies List]]

[[Category:National Film Registry]]

[[Category:Films of the 1990s]]

[[Category:Hugo Award]]