There was another movie that came out the same year titled 12:01 with a time loop premise, in which the loop was caused by a technobabble science experiment.
But when the plot device is explainable, the action is centered around stopping the experiment from happening again to stop the loop. The genius of Groundhog Day is that Phil has no idea what’s happened to him and thus knows of no way to stop it - so the movie focuses on him in his predicament. And since he doesn’t know that becoming a better person will stop the time loop, the audience sees his transformation at the end of the movie as genuine.
BTW, the author of the story that was eventually adapted into 12:01 complained of his plot device being plagiarized by the Groundhog Day producers. Of course, he wasn’t the first person to write a time loop story…
And of course, Bill Murray played Scrooge a few years earlier.
I believe it was established that Larry was married, which makes his insistence in being included in a bachelor’s auction comical.
Phil isn’t a bad guy, but a lazy guy with no purpose in life. The presumptive gods/spirits that chose him evidently did so for a reason. Phil seems like a guy who is content doing the mid-market weathermen bit because he has the charisma to make it easy, it pays well enough, and he’s happy with the tail he can get from being a local celeb. There’s no indication that he really cares about anything other than himself. He doesn’t mourn for missing any friends or family members, he just wants to get back to his dissolute life. He is being forced to become a better person.
I am positing that Phil was “chosen” and that other people wouldn’t be chosen. Someone with a full life, who doesn’t need to learn this lesson, wouldn’t be chosen. A more malevolent person, who would take advantage of the situation to rape and murder, also wouldn’t be chosen. It’s important to note that other than killing himself, Phil doesn’t cross the line too much. He seems to just pursue single women. He does punch Ned, but that’s fairly harmless. I suppose the groundhog died when he ran the truck into the quarry. He steals the money from the armored truck, but that’s just a trick, it’s not like he can use the money.
I could not swear to it, but I don’t recall that Larry was married. The only thing I remember in that vein was Phil asking him at one point if he had kids.
