BACK COVER SYNOPSIS: You'll love Bill Murray at his wise-cracking best in this romantic comedy about a self-centred TV weatherman who finds himself caught in a personal time warp. Suddenly, he's having the worst day of his life... over and over and over again! With no tomorrow to worry about and plenty of time on his hands, Phil explores some of his favourite fantasies, becomes an expert at all things trivial and pointless, but continually strikes out with the one woman that matters... his producer Rita (Andie MacDowell).

FILM REVIEW: The idea of watching a guy relive the same day over and over again as the basis of a film might seem boring on the surface but there’s a lot to like in this comedy about self-absorbed weather man Phil Conners (Bill Murray) who gets stuck reliving the Groundhog Day Festival over and over again. The term “Groundhog Day” has become something of a minor pop-culture reference (ask anyone who works in repetitive job) and the look on Bill Murray’s face sums up a lot of the frustration that any of us would have if our days were always the same and nothing ever changed. The film uses this theme as a strength, and while it uses its premise to deliver on a number of unique comedic moments, it also manages to impart some higher level themes, such as the idea that surrendering yourself to your situation (rather than trying to change or control it) is the only way you’ll find happiness. But even if you don’t look that deep in to this film, “Groundhog Day” is a funny, witty, entertaining piece of work.

Bill Murray is his usual best as Phil Connors; essentially he’s playing his trademark self-absorbed, sarcastic character he made famous in other films such as “Ghostbusters” and “Scrooged” (amongst many others). To his frustration, he is sent with new producer Rita (Andie McDowell) and camerman Larry (Chris Elliott) to cover the Groundhog Day festival. He obnoxiously gets through it but wakes up the next day in shock; it’s Groundhog Day again… and again… and again. Trapped in what he believes is hell (but is more like purgatory), he relives this crazy day over and over, trying all sorts of stunts to see what he can get away with, whether that be getting on the wrong side of the law, trying to romance Rita or even killing himself. As he says at one point to Rita, “I’m a God, not the God.” Eventually, Phil resigns himself to his situation and comes to comfortably inhabit the town holding the festival and its people, and it’s only when he gets to this point of spiritual enlightenment that he is freed from this bizarre recurring event.

The filmmakers make the great decision of not only never explaining the cause of the recurring day, but that we also get to experience Phil’s first day before it recurs. In the latter, we’re pre-empted to Phil’s attitude for the rest of the film, making all the moments that come later all the more amusing. In the former, not explaining the cause would have bogged the film down unnecessarily so it is to their credit that they kept that side of things as simple as possible. There’s also the way the ‘recurring’ nature of the plot is played out; surprisingly, it’s never boring, despite replaying certain events again and again. There is some latitude in the plot to go elsewhere as Phil tries many different things on each recurring day, but essentially it never leaves the town so it’s to the filmmakers credit that they never let this joke tire or become repetitive.

Director Harold Ramis does a particularly good job of playing the theme, “if you could do something over again, what would you do differently?” This is used to comedic effect when Phil keeps replaying the same ‘date’ with Rita, only perfecting his dialogue with her with each attempt. Or when Phil tries to kill himself in many different ways only to wake up alive again on ‘Groundhog Day’. It’s also used in a more moving way when later in the film, as Phil is becoming more altruistic, he tries to save a homeless man from dying but no matter how many different ways he tries, he can’t alter the outcome. These themes play in to the notion that you have to let yourself go to your situation rather than trying to change it to the way you want it, as this is the only way that you can find any happiness. If you’re too worried about what you don’t have then you won’t be content with what you do have. For a comedy, that’s a fairly lofty theme and it’s no wonder that Buddhists love this film (a fact Ramis discusses in the making-of documentary).

“Groundhog Day” is a witty, light-hearted film that manages to make its seemingly limited premise an unlimited excursion in to comedy and the meaning of life.

TECHNICAL REVIEW: The video transfer is quite reasonable; the picture is clear and vibrant throughout most of the running time. The colours are good if not overly strong, and there are the occasional film scratches and jumps. The audio transfer is very good, although this is not the type of film that will make use of your surround sound system (although the epic shot of the clock changing from 5:59am to 6.00pm utilises the surrounds quite effectively!). We also get additional language tracks (French, German, Italian and Spanish). Overall, it's a good tranfser.

EXTRAS REVIEW: We get a handful of extras on this DVD. The audio commentary by Harold Ramis, despite some gaps here and there where he doesn't speak, is quite informative and he delivers a lot of interesting information. However, I found the 25-minute making of documentary a better piece; it's not a promo piece and despite it's short running time it manages to cover a lot of ground, including the interesting tidbit that the original script saw the film start with Phil already reliving the Groundhog Day which was changed when it was noticed that doing this would miss an opportunity to see Phil's first reaction to it which had a lot of comedic potential. Rounding out the extras are trailers and subtitles (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Greek, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Hindi, Turkish, Danish, Arabic, Bulgarian, Swedish, Finnish, Icelandic, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese, Hebrew and Croatian). Overall, a decent set of extras for a single disc DVD.

BOTTOM LINE: Worth having in the collection.