Groundhog Day Sparknotes

The movie Groundhog Day tells a great tale about an arrogant, self-centered weather forecaster named Phil who has to be exiled from normal life so he can discover that he is in exile with himself. On February 1, Phil and his television crew travel to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania where he is to cover the yearly ritual of the coming out of groundhog. He doesn’t like Punxsutawney so the following morning, he does his story and then gets his team on the road back to Pittsburg. On his way back, he discovers he is stuck in Punxsutawney for another night because of a blizzard that closes down travel. Phil wakes up the next morning in his guest house to find that he is reliving the day before all over again. Everything that happened to him that previous day – the man trying to start a conversation at the top of the stairs, the old high school acquaintance recognizing him on the street, the ritual of Groundhog Day – it all occurs again. No one but Phil is aware of the time loop. At the beginning he is confused, but later on starts to take advantage of the situation. He starts to treat life as a game, he learns the town’s citizen’s secrets, seduces women, drives carelessly, and gets thrown in jail. However, his strive to get closer to Rita continuously fails.

He kidnaps the groundhog and drives off into a quarry; he takes a plugged-in toaster into the shower; and he jumps off a building. However, Phil wakes up the following mornings to find that he is still alive and