Groundhog Day

Happy Groundhog Day! 
Happy Groundhog Day! 
Happy Groundhog Day! 

I posted the above greeting on the daily agenda for my English classes yesterday. "Does anyone know why I wrote the same thing over and over?" I asked, but none of my students had ever even heard of the movie Groundhog Day, and so they were unable to get the joke.

"It's from an old movie," I explained, "where a weatherman reporting on the groundhog gets stuck in a time loop. No matter what he does, it's always Groundhog Day whenever he wakes up."

"Is it good?" one kid asked me.  

I paused before answering. "I haven't seen it in a really long time," I confessed. "I think it was funny?" I shrugged and moved on with the lesson, but the conversation stayed with me.

"I know what we should watch tonight," I told Heidi when we got home after school. "Groundhog Day!"

She groaned but agreed to the plan, and so after dinner, we settled ourselves on the couch and turned on the TV.

"What year was this made?" Heidi asked, examining the hair and the clothes and the cars. 

"1993!" I answered, for I had already looked it up. "The same year I started teaching."

The movie was a little slow to start. Bill Murray's unpleasant character was not entertaining, and reminded me of a lot of cinematic jerks from back then: Dan Ackroyd in Trading Places, Val Kilmer in Top Gun, James Spader in everything. I actually nodded off after the first two wake-ups, and Heidi poked me and told me to go to bed. "No, no," I insisted, "I'm awake now."

 I was, too, but Heidi went to bed anyway and I watched the rest of the movie alone. 

And although I wouldn't go so far as this reviewer, who calls the film "a spiritual and philosophical masterpiece" and compares Phil Connors to Siddhartha, I would say that, despite being a bit dated and Phil's initial tiresome snarkiness aside, the movie is warm-hearted and entertaining with more than a few laugh out loud moments. 

But I don't need to rewatch it any time soon.