(:)(:)(:)(:)(:) out of a possible five snouts for Groundhog Day the 1993 movie starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. Tonight my kids and I started a new tradition of watching it annually on February 2nd–important because in other respects our Groundhog Day observance went lacking (groundhog is only safe for O blood types to eat and I’ve discovered I’m an A).
An amazing 17 years after it was made, the movie endures. My 10 and 12 year old love it for its BillMurray silliness and mulitiple suicide attempts–“play the part where he runs off the cliff with the groundhog again!” I love it for its profound spiritual lesson: what do you do when every day is pretty much the same?
Stage one: eat, smoke, drink and fuck everything in sight.
Stage two: try to manipulate the people around you into thinking you’re a good person so that you can get what you want
Stage three: attempt suicide
Stage four: accept that now is the only moment you have so make it count–learn to play piano, speak and read French, master brain surgery, ice sculpture, and above all love every single person you meet beyond reason, without expectation, and with true humility.
Then and only then do you get to move on.
I fully expect to be watching and learning from this film in 2024.