Creating Story Movement by Traveling in Circles:
A Review of Groundhog Day
by Bill Johnson

It is a principle of a well-told story that as a story unfolds, every event and character action should advance the story along its story line and plot line. A failure to introduce a story and advance it dramatically along its story line and plot line is a root cause of why so many struggling writers fail. Their stories fail to create a quality of dramatic advance that creates a "moving" experience for their audience.

The film Groundhog Day offers a great example of how a story can advance along its story line even when its plot is, on the surface, a replay of the same events. By pointing out how this story moves forward while seeming to be going in circles, this underlying process of creating dramatic movement can be explored.

The Review

Groundhog Day opens with its credits appearing over a sky with moving clouds, signaling a passage of time. It quickly cuts to Phil, played by Bill Murray, a weatherman speaking to a blank blue wall while on a television, he appears to be looking at a weathermap. It comes out in this scene that Murray is an egocentric sort who will be spending the day in Punxsutawney, a town where Groundhog Day has been turned into a tradition and media event. The producer for this field shoot will be Rita (Andie McDowell), who is young and fresh compared to Murray's jaded persona. The dramatic purpose of this scene is to introduce Phil as a particular kind of obnoxious character who will be spending some time with the innocent, fresh Rita. The story question this introduction sets up is, can Phil and Rita get together? Obvious answer, no. But since this is a romantic comedy that intends to show how that answer can be turned to "yes," these two characters are introduced to be naturally antagonistic...and spending the next few days together.

The next series of scenes has Phil, Larry his shooter, and Rita in a van driving to Punxsutawney. By placing Rita and Phil in the van together, it becomes just how clear they are OPPOSITES with a mutual dislike. Rita is more than happy to stay at a cheap hotel as long as it means spending less time in the vicinity of Phil.

To this point, the story has introduced Murray and his brand of humor contrasted with Rita's innocence, but it has also introduced these characters in a way that a core element of the story has come into view: if Phil and Rita are destined together, what must happen to bring this about?

How do we (the audience) know they're destined to be together? By the way they were introduced.

Phil comes awake on Groundhog day when an alarm clock flips over to 6 a.m. and the strains of "I Got You, Babe" by Sonny and Cher wake him. The song is followed by some local newscasters and their predictions about the weather. Phil walks to the park for his news report, meeting a variety of people. All seems typical. After giving his taped report of the events in the park, which predict six more weeks of winter, Phil, Rita and Larry head out of town. But the blizzard Phil predicted would not hit the area (on the opening newscast) sends them back to Punxsutawney.

Phil stays in the same bed and breakfast, and again wakes to Sonny and Cher singing "I Got You, Babe," and what sounds like a taped replay of the weather report from the day before. But as Phil begins his day, he realizes he's somehow repeating the day before, event by event. Phil is disturbed, but also cautious about appearing too alarmed because, while he's aware he's replaying the same day, others are not. Now, when Phil meets others, he reacts to them with the knowledge he's gained from living the same day the day before.

This is how the story advances even while it's playing out the same day in Phil's life, because by showing his reaction -- comic and funny -- to this turn of events, the story advances. Phil even asks Rita to slap him to bring him out of this seeming intense dream. Rita is happy to oblige. Phil tries to tell her that something is seriously strange happening in her life, but Rita simply thinks Phil has found a new way to be abrasive.

Phil goes to sleep that night bewildered and unsure about what to expect when he wakes. As an experiment, he breaks a pencil just before he goes to sleep.

Phil wakes at 6 a.m....into the same day, the broken pencil now unbroken. Now he reacts to the people he sees with a quality of panic. His reactions set up the question, what will Phil do about this strange happening? Is he trapped? Can he get untrapped? In terms of its structure, the story has advanced to a point of no return for Phil. He simply has to find a way to come to grips with what's happened. He literally has no choice but to resolve what's happened. The audience, to the degree they've been drawn in by Murray/Phil's persona and the story issue of his potential relationship with Rita, now has a curve in the equation about the question of whether the abrasive Phil will get together with Rita.

This is similar to Die Hard, which was a love story about a couple reconciling but blocked by terrorists, who, in a way, both block and bring the couple back together. In Groundhog Day, the very thing that blocks Phil -- the day repeating -- will later offer an opportunity for him to actually move ahead in life. While this story's plot is about this day that keeps repeating for Phil, its story exists on this deeper level of what it means to be stuck in life, in this case acted out by a very concretely "stuck in time" character.

Phil confides his dilemma to Rita. She advises him to get help. Phil later ends up at a bowling alley, rhetorically asking, "Why couldn't he get stuck in a beautiful day?"

He then asks a man he's getting drunk with, "What would you do if you were stuck in one day and nothing you did mattered?"

Man, "That about sums it up (my life) for me."

It's a funny, observant line. Like the humor in most well-done comedies, it's very true and accurate about how many people might feel about their lives at least some of the time.

Phil decides to drive his drunk friends home, when the question arises, "What if there was no tomorrow?"

The answer, then Phil could do anything he wanted.

So he does. He runs over a mailbox, plays chicken with a train, goes to jail...and wakes up at 6:00 a.m. back in his bed to start the same day over again. Now, Phil plays his predicament like a jolly good time, kissing an older woman, punching a high school chum who wants to sell him some insurance, avoiding stepping into a mud puddle, eating a HUGE lunch. He's got no worries, but Rita, observing his behavior, is horrified by it.

Phil, leaving Rita, meets a pretty woman. He talks to her long enough to get some background information about her, then...we cut to the next day/same day. This time, when Phil meets her, he uses what he knows about her to seduce her.

The story has advanced again. We're seeing the same day, but Phil's reaction to it is new and funny. When he seduces the woman, he accidentally calls her "Rita." She's upset, until he asks her to marry him...knowing tomorrow will be the same day and his actions won't have consequences. This is the obnoxious Phil in full play, but it also cues us to the fact that he does have feelings for Rita, an important issue for the story.

Several more "days" pass, and Phil, getting a little bored, asks Rita, "What do you want out of life?" Who would be her perfect guy? Phil has decided to begin courting Rita. But this story development was actually begun in the opening scenes of the story via the way Phil and Rita were introduced. Many writers struggle with the openings of their stories because instead of introducing characters in a way that suggests their dramatic purpose, they use the openings of their stories to systematically introduce their characters. The problem with this kind of introduction is it generally robs each introduction of any kind of suggestion about the dramatic purpose of the character in the story itself. Such a story can't "begin" until all those introductions are completed.

Returning to the story, Phil now begins to slow process of finding out information about Rita. In terms of the story's structure, a scene progresses until Phil makes a "mistake" in his approach to Rita, then the scene cuts away to the beginning of the previous scene. It replays showing Phil correcting his mistake of the "day" before. As part of his wooing Rita, Phil learns French and studies poetry.

He finally knows enough about Rita to create a perfect "day" for her. He invites her to his room and she reluctantly comes up. Finally, they kiss, but she has misgivings, and he blurts out, "I love you." At that point, the spell is broken. She feels he's playing her and lying just to seduce her. Unfortunately for Phil, he's spent so much time with her, he really HAS fallen in love with her, but she has no recollection of the many, many "days" they've spent together.

Rita, "I could never love someone like you."

Note the dramatic purpose of this line. It shows just how much effort Phil will have to make to change Rita's feelings about him. It's a line that sets up the drama of the situation to be acted out.

Phil keeps trying, the scene repeating over and over to this moment in his room, where Rita SLAP SLAP SLAPS his face. The repetition is both funny while showing Phil's determination to make love with a woman he finally really loves.

Phil, now tired and grouchy, gives up. He blows off his performance in the park, sits in pajamas giving all the answers ahead of contestants on Jeopardy to the amazement of on-lookers. During one of his newscasts, Phil talks about the winter being, "...cold, grey, last you the rest of your life."

Now when the clock wakes him, he smashes it.

Phil, seeking a way out, kidnaps Punxsutawney Phil, the Groundhog, and dies in a flaming crash. Only to wake up the next morning. For Phil as a character, this is yet another transformation into another character type. He started out the story brash and confidence, and now he's suicidal. In many of the scripts I read, characters are introduced as a particular type, and while they may play that type angry, etc., their personality never changes. In this story, Phil's character transforms as he reacts to what's happening to him. His transformations are subtle, comic, over-the-top and easy to track. Someone who hates Bill Murray would come up with a different list of adjectives to describe his performance, of course, but they should be able to concede the movement for this character, that Phil has gone through a series of distinct transformations as he's reacted to the story's events. Such transformations should occur in every story, unless the writer is specially making the point that they've created a character who doesn't change how they react to events no matter what happens to them.

Continuing with the story, Phil goes through killing himself in a variety of ways during the coming "days." The story shifts tone here, its seriousness and mournful quality breaking through to the surface, but no matter what he does, he can't keep himself from repeating this endless "day." As the story advances into new territory, Phil's physical reactions to his predicament and his emotional reactions to it change, and the audience as well is set up to be drawn in to experience this shift. Many "comedies" are, at heart, quite serious about their stories.

Phil now tells Rita, "I'm a god," because he can't die. He convinces her that he's experienced the same day over and over again. This builds to where Phil tells Rita he's in love with her, and she believes him. This scene continues the story advancing into new emotional territory for Phil.

Rita asks, "What's the worst part?" of the experience? Phil, "You'll have forgotten me." Or, to put it another way, Rita will just know the "Phil" he was before this day began, an egocentric jerk.

The movement of this story has forced Phil to recognize himself for what he is.

The story has advanced from Phil being an egocentric jerk to finally, truly understanding what that means.

Rita, "Maybe it's not a curse," i.e., at least Phil now has this realization of what kind of life he's lived up to this point. As "proof" of this new Phil and his attraction, Rita is now willing to stay with the night with him. As Phil falls asleep, he says to her, "The first time I saw you, something happened to me...I knew I wanted to hold you as hard as I could...I don't deserve someone like you, but if I ever could, I swear I would love you for the rest of my life."

Phil's character has made a concrete, visible transformation. Still, Phil wakes up alone. For Rita, those special moments of the day before have never happened. But Phil learned something from that day. He now goes about making it his business to ensure that everyone in Punxsutawney have a perfect day, where no bad thing is allowed to happen. The once-egocentric Phil even uses mouth to mouth resuscitation to try and keep from dying a vagrant living on the street. He learns to play the piano beautifully. He gives a man asking for spare change money, a salesman all the sales he can handle.

This is another way the story advances along its story line in a concrete, visible way.

At a post Groundhog Day party, everyone Phil's helped that day comes up to offer their thanks for his efforts to make their lives better. When Phil is offered up "for sale" as part of an auction, Rita makes the highest bid to "buy" the night with Phil, an action on her part that would have been absurd at the beginning of the story and the beginning of this "day."

Phil makes an ice sculpture of Rita's face...and she wants to know how he could have made such a beautiful likeness of her face having known her such a short time. He tells her of his deep, passionate love for her and how it arose. Phil, "No matter what happens, tomorrow or for the rest of my life, I'm happy now because I love you."

Rita, "I think I'm happy, too."

They kiss, and spend the night together.

The next day, the same song by Sonny and Cher plays...but it's a joke by the dee jays. It is a new day. Phil is wonderfully happy, for probably the first time in his life.

He and Rita go out to celebrate the new day.

End of story and answer to dramatic story question, can Phil transform himself in a way that he and Rita can get together.

Dramatic answer: yes.

The premise of this story: "Being forced to confront and overcome our faults can lead to real happiness."

If this story were to be diagrammed, it could be shown how each event of the story dramatically advances the story along both its story line and plot line in a pleasing and ultimately fulfilling way.

A few story structure notes...the story is designed so that Phil cannot escape repeating the same day over and over again, which leads him to fall in love with Rita. Some writers struggle because they offer their audience no compelling reason for why their dissimilar characters would choose to be together. If this story were set up in a way that Rita could somehow go on, leave the day behind, the story would lose its dramatic power. If Rita were created to be another obnoxious character, the story might risk not giving its audience any reason to care about whether either Phil or Rita made it free of the day repeating itself.

One of the things that is most instructive about this story is how Phil's character and his reactions to events change with each enactment of the same "day." In a weak script, major characters can go from one end of the story to the other without showing much change in how they're reacting to the story's events. As those events escalate the pressure and obstacles that act on a story's characters, those character's actions should show a discernible, concrete evolution that is tied to the story's underlying dramatic purpose and outcome. If a story's characters appear to be indifferent or impervious to a story's events, why should a story's audience feel affected by the story's course and outcome?

This is not to say that every story should have a series of Phil/Bill Murray type characters mugging at the camera, but that the storyteller perceive that the environment and plot of their story is designed to elicit from their characters emotional reactions that allow an entry point for an audience into a story. Without those entry points, a story risks remaining distant and unmoving to its audience.

This is a well-done, enjoyable story. As a footnote, the original creator of the script was not happy with the way his more philosophical story was changed into a more broadly comic story.

A second footnote, and a personal observation, Bill Murray and other stars are generally as good as the story they appear in. Bill Murray in a weak story isn't that funny.

©2000 Bill Johnson