Reaction to "Groundhog Day"

There are many films like Groundhog Day that have the same day repeating over and over again until the main character learns some life lesson or accomplishes something. Personally, I don’t think that Groundhog Day was one of the better ones. The main character, Phil, spent many of his repeated days either trying to kill himself or trying to get Rita in bed with him. I think that's a little screwed up. I wasn't until the last few minutes of the film that Phil actually starts to give purpose to the day.

Throughout the film, Phil struggles with two different questions: How does he make meaning out of life? When does life have meaning? These two questions are tied together because in order to make life have meaning, you have to know when life has meaning. At the beginning of the film, Phil is very self-absorbed and thinks that the world revolves around him. This is why he initially uses the repeating day to his advantage by stealing money, eating excess amounts of unhealthy food, and seducing women. All the while he is failing in his attempts to get closer to Rita.

I think that the turning point in the movie, and the point at which Phil arrives at the conclusions to the two questions, is when he tells Rita about his repeating day. She suggests to him that he use the day to try and make himself a better person, and from that point on he does just that. By the end of the film, Phil was able to make friends with many of the townspeople that he had met during the day, and he was able to use his vast knowledge of the day to save the lives of, as well as help, many of the townspeople. He is also able to get closer to Rita.

By the end of Groundhog Day, Phil came to the conclusion that life has meaning when you live for something greater than yourself. He realized that the way to make meaning out of life is to help other people instead of just focusing on himself. I agree with Phil's conclusions because I know that when I do something nice for someone else I feel like it gives me a purpose in life. I think that these are lasting conclusions for Phil because he desperately wanted Groundhog Day to end and the only way that it ended was when he lived his life based on these conclusions. I think that Phil would be too scared of having that happen again to go back to his old ways.