Groundhog Day is the classic film we now live every single day

Originally published Jan. 29, 2021.

When Groundhog Day was released in 1993, the premise of the comedy film seemed completely implausible. It was the stuff of fiction.

But then came 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic, and suddenly the film seemed a little more relatable and realistic.

The film follows the story of TV weatherman Phil Connors, who is played by Bill Murray. Connors begrudgingly travels to Punxsutawney, Pa., to report on the town's famous Groundhog Day festivities, including celebrity groundhog Punxsutawney Phil.

But after covering the story, Connors wakes up the next morning only to find that it's Groundhog Day again. And it happens the next day too. Connors soon realizes that he is being forced to relive the same day over and over again. Sound familiar?

As the pandemic worsened, lockdowns took hold and people were told to stay at home, Groundhog Day took on new meaning. Those who were fortunate could work from home. Children were schooled from home. Activities were cancelled. There was a new sameness and monotony to each day.

When Megan Garber, a staff writer for The Atlantic, watched the film in April, it prompted her to write an essay entitled "Groundhog Day Was a Horror Movie All Along."

She says her views haven't changed.

"In some ways, it's only become more so for me over the past months," she told CBC Radio's Day 6. 

Groundhog Day, the horror movie

"I first watched the film back in April, when the pandemic was relatively new, and I was just curious about it because a lot of people in news reports, in popular culture, were summoning Groundhog Day as one of the illustrative movies of the moment," Garber said.

"People were sort of regarding it as coping in this moment."

Nearly a year later, life during COVID-19 has only cemented her opinion.

"Now, so many months later, with so many deaths later, with just so many compounding slow-moving tragedies later, I think Groundhog Day operates even more so as horror for me because it really highlights so many of the tragedies of life in quarantine [and] of what's happened to people who don't have the luxury of quarantine," Garber said.

I was really struck [when I watched] back in April by how dark it really was and how anxious it was.- Megan Garber, The Atlantic

Garber says she remembered Groundhog Day as a romantic comedy and had forgotten how dark the film can be in certain scenes. 

"I was really struck [when I watched] back in April by how dark it really was, and how anxious it was, and [by] the desperation that filled the main character ... as he's going through this never-ending day,"  she recalled.

"But [I was] also similarly stuck in kind of a repetition: the same place every day, the days sort of blending together where one becomes indistinguishable from the other," she said, making comparisons between the film and the pandemic.

Lessons from the film

As with life during the pandemic, Phil Connors goes through many different stages of emotions as he relives Feb. 2 over and over again. At first, he was scared and shocked and didn't know how to respond.

But then that morphs into a feeling of freedom and recklessness.

"He can eat whatever he wants. He can just sort of indulge all of his instincts, based and otherwise, and have no consequence. And I think at first he sees that as very freeing and very liberating in some ways," said Garber.

Remember all of the baking and bread people consumed in the spring? Phil did that too. But then when that life wasn't at all fulfilling, he began to struggle with his situation.

"He does try many, many times to take his own life. He becomes increasingly sort of desperate and aware that he is trapped in something he doesn't understand," said Garber. 

"And I think in particular, it's darker because he didn't quite understand the mechanism by which he was trapped … he simply had to endure what was happening to him and have no way of even understanding how to overcome it, how to get out of it. And I think that is its own kind of darkness and that is its own kind of despair that really permeates the movie."

The happy ending

Groundhog Day was produced as a romantic comedy so, of course, it has a happy ending. But that doesn't mean there aren't real-life lessons to be taken from the film, Garber says.

After Connors goes through a dark period, he eventually begins to accept his fate. He works to become a better person. He helps people. He learns how to play the piano. He reads more. He begins to enjoy life.

"I think that evolution is really powerful, not just as an evolution of a character within a dark comedy, but I think also as an evolution that can be instructive to us as a society and as people who, if we want to get out of this pandemic, we're going to have to not just be concerned for ourselves but be concerned for all of us together as a collective," said Garber.

Despite the fact that the groundhog sees his shadow and predicts six more weeks of winter in the film, Connors, by the end of the film, can see the beauty in each day — and a light at the end of the tunnel.

"I think that that's the most powerful element of it for me — and [to] take stock of the year that we've just been through together and think about this journey and hope for better days and that there's a spring after this winter."

Written and produced by Laurie Allan.