1993’s Groundhog Day is one of my all-time favorite films; I rewatch it everyone year (on Groundhog Day, of course). In part, I like it for its refreshingly lighthearted 1990s-era romcom charm, punctuated by a stellar performance by the inimitable Bill Murray. But I rewatch the film annually because of the rich philosophical themes underlying it - themes that are explored sublty and indirectly (particularly refreshing in the current age of overbearingly didactic films and television shows). In particular, I think that Groundhog Day illuminates an important distinction between two very different conceptions of human freedom: (a) freedom as the liberation from external constraints and (b) freedom as self-mastery.
At the beginning of the film, we find Pittsburgh television weatherman, Phil Connors (Murray), a supremely dour, cynical, and unpleasant semi-misanthrope. He has been sent to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania along with his producer Rita (Andie MacDowell) and cameraman Larry (Chris Elliott), to cover the annual Groundhog Day festival - and is less than happy about it. Although a joyful and fun event, Phil finds the festival, its enthusiasts, and the town in which it is held unbearably far beneath him and unworthy of his time or attention.
The general impression one receives of Phil is that of a man who - although seemingly capable of projecting a likable enough character on the nightly weather report - is living in a kind of hell of his own making. His narcissistic self-regard, in conjunction with a crushingly negative disposition and a crushingly low view of others, has isolated him and left him in a state of perpetual dissatisfaction. Phil is vicious, in the classical sense of being possessed of a vice-ridden character; his viciousness, in turn, imposes a severe limitation on the sorts of experiences to which he is open, and the goods of life that he is able to appreciate.
To Phil’s horror, after the Groundhog Day festivities conclude, a blizzard prevents him and his team from returning home to Pittsburgh that evening. The story gets underway properly when Phil wakes the following morning to find…It is still Groundhog Day. Caught in a time loop, Phil finds himself reliving the same day over and over again, waking each morning to the sound of “I Got You Babe” blaring from the bedside clock radio in his room at a quaint Bed and Breakfast.
After spending several Groundhog Days attempting to ascertain - and, perhaps, to escape - his predicament (to no avail), Phil moves on to a stage of acceptance. During the first portion of this stage, he begins to appreciate the radical form of freedom that the time loop has bestowed upon him: he has, after all, been liberated from the tyranny of consequences; he can now do whatever he likes and awake the next morning just as he had been the morning before. So, being alive (in virtue of his viciousness) only to base pleasures, he begins chasing those to his heart’s content.
However, relentless pursuit of mere pleasure does not lead to contentment for Phil. Indeed, he soon enters a phase of profound depression, which leads him eventually to attempt suicide - many times, always without success; always followed by the harmonies of Sonny and Cher waking him from his slumbers.
Eventually, having both tired of his pursuit of pleasure and accepted the inescapability of his strange fate, Phil decides to try something new: namely, being good. He begins by changing his orientation towards others from one of irritable impatience to one of concern and understanding - despite the seeming futility imposed by the reality that any demonstrations of kindness would be remembered by no one (at least no one in Phil’s own timeline) the next morning.
He also decides to improve himself. He does this, in part, by acquiring some worthy skills - for example, becoming a proficient pianist and a master ice sculptor. But, most importantly, Phil improves himself by cultivating virtues - such as magnanimity, fortitude, prudence, temperance, and beneficence - and by orienting himself towards the pursuit of higher goods, such as knowledge, friendship, love, and aesthetic appreciation.
To be sure (and lest he be mistaken for a saint) Phil’s self-improvement project seems to be motivated in no small part by a desire to earn the affection of his romantic interest, Rita. However, while perhaps not as admirable as the aim of cultivating virtue for its own sake, the presence of this motive itself marks a substantial improvement in Phil’s character: at the beginning of the film, he is capable of seeing Rita only as an object - as nothing more than yet another shiny thing to distract him from his boredom and unhappiness. By the end of the film, Phil is able to see and appreciate her as a full and complete person - as an end in herself (in Kantian terms); as someone of whom to make himself worthy, rather than as a prize to win.
The transformation of Phil’s character can be understood, in part, in terms of his transition from valuing one variety of freedom at the beginning of the film to valuing another by its conclusion. Prior to entering the time loop, Phil values freedom from those constraints that impose limitations on his ability to pursue what he desires (e.g., other people, social norms, laws - even natural, causal reality, itself).
But by the end of the film, Phil has discovered that freedom from constraints can easily give way to a tyranny of desires. True freedom, he finds, consists not in being completely free from constraints, but in having mastery over his desires - and, moreover, in cultivating certain sorts of desires, rather than others. This is what we might call the freedom of the ancients, for it is how freedom was conceived in the classical world; it is also how freedom has generally been conceived by the world religions.
The notion that true freedom amounts only to freedom from constraints - often coupled with the further thought according to which there are no objective facts concerning what one ought to desire - is not without its own ancient roots. However, it only became a widespread view very recently, rising to prominence during the Age of Enlightenment (which represented, in part, a departure from classical thought and traditional religion) and came to fruition in the post-Enlightenment radical individualism of Friedrich Nietzsche and his heirs. For many in the contemporary world, it is arguably now something like the default view. For reasons that Groundhog Day illustrates so well, it is not unreasonable to suppose that this is a cause of much of the misery and dysfunction that we find in our societies today.
What a masterpiece of an article!