Groundhog Day

I'm not much of a Bill Murray fan in general, so I didn't get interested in this movie until I read more than once that it had a lot of fans in various spiritual communities, which made me very curious. And so it was that "Groundhog Day" found its way onto my Netflix list.

I thought I remembered this being marketed as a comedy for theatrical release, and while there are definitely funny parts, that's not truly accurate. The spiritual component comes from this guy starting out as, well, not a nice guy, to say the least, and through the course of the movie you watch him change. He tries all of the crap any of us would probably try under similar circumstances. It rings true, or the movie simply wouldn't work. You know where it's going all along, and yet you feel as though he's earned it by making all of the necessary mistakes a thousand times (probably literally) until he finally learns how to truly build a good life.

There are plenty of laughs along the way, especially if you find Bill Murray funny in the first place. I loved him in "Stripes" and "Ghostbusters", and found him annoying in everything else I've seen him in before this. No, I haven't see "Lost in Translation" yet, but it is on my Netflix list. So the bottom line is, "Groundhog Day", highly recommended. I watched it twice in a row (second time with director's commentary), which says it all.