Just a fun thread to discuss one of my favorite movies…
I just re-watched this movie this week while on a sewing binge, and remembered all the crazy theories my mother, brother and I, as well as my group of friends, have come up with to explain why Phil Conners gets stuck in a Groundhog’s Day-repeating-loop, and why it suddenly breaks.
My favorite theory remains that the bartender did it.
What’s yours? Can be anything from quantum physics to an angel forcing him to redeem himself like “It’s A Wonderful Life.” Since it an explanation never even really hinted at in the movie, it’s always fun to see what folks come up with.
Magic. Whatever was influencing the loops, it stopped once he finally stopped being an arse. Capraesque? Dickensesque? The cause wasn’t as important as the character’s redemption.
BTW, the movie was believed to have been inspired (influenced) by the novel, Replay which is a fine read. In the novel, instead of a 24 hour loop, the protag experiences decades long loops. If you are any kind of a fan of GD or time travel stories in general, you should read this novel.
First of all, it’s Groundhog Day, not Groundhog*'s *Day. How dare you misname one of my top 3 movies of all time!
As to what’s really happening … it’s strictly a metaphysical thing. No other explanation required unless you want to get into multiverses and all. How did Phil break out of it? I always thought it was because his transformation into a “good” person was complete, which was symbolized by Rita’s acceptance of the new Phil. For some reason, I can watch the movie over and over again and not get tired of it!
Claire’s dismissive sniffing notwithstanding, it is possible to “get” the movie and still have fun speculating about it. Wild speculation is entertaining in its own right; it doesn’t mean we think the movie would be better with an “explanation”.
Here’s one off the cuff:
A time traveler inadvertently interfered with Phil Connors’ childhood by somehow humiliating the boy, setting in motion a chain of events that produced Phil-the-jerk. Without this interference, Phil would have grown up to be a nice guy and a natural match for Rita. They would have fallen in love on Groundhog Day–the first day they actually spent a lot of time together. They would have married, had children, and one of their descendents would have been the time traveler.
Groundhog Day is the last possible time to correct history and avoid the paradox. The looping is actually the paradox “resetting” each time events cause the time traveler to have never existed. Phil remembers the loops because he interacted directly with the time traveler, causing his personal timeline to be offset slightly from the natural course of history.
Phil’s doesn’t just save himself through his redemption. He saves the universe.
The directors wanted to see what would happen if somebody was exposed to Andie McDowell’s acting day after day for several years. Clearly, it unhinged Bill Murray, if his subsequent films are any indication.
My favorite off the wall theory is that it’s actually Ol’ Needle nose Ned the head that’s in the time loop and Phil the weatherman is the only one besides Ned that knows it’s looping. When Ned finally sells Phil a bunch of insurance, they both get out of the loop. There’s also some karmic rule that Ned can’t just tell Phil, “Buy insurance from me and it’ll stop the loop.” if you watch the movie with that in mind, it may change your viewpoint, especially in the Ned scenes.
