Groundhog Day: Difference between revisions

=== Groundhog Day provides examples of: ===

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

* [[Armor-Piercing Slap]]: There's an entire ''montage'' of these, while Phil tries to refine his technique on Rita, only to get shot down every time.

* [[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.

** 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.]]

* [[CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable]]: Averted: Phil attempts CPR in an alley as a last-ditch effort to save the homeless man. No matter what he does, though (including this), the man still dies. Every time. It looks like exhausting and distressing work.

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

{{quote| '''Phil:''' Well what if there ''is'' no tomorrow? There wasn't one ''today''!}}

* [[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.

* [[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....

{{quote| '''Piano Teacher:''' And you've ''never'' played before?<br />

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

{{quote| '''Phil: (to the breakfast lady)''' Do you ever have déjà vu, Mrs. Lancaster?<br />

'''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.

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

* [[Viewers are Morons]]: Phil believes most of his audience are ("People like blood sausage: people are morons").

** Considering the original explanation involved a curse by an ex reading a "how to do magic" book, it's less "making the film more magical" and more "removing the idiocy".

* [[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.

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

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