How Groundhog Day opened the door, again and again, for time-loop films
30 years after the Harold Ramis-Bill Murray comedy set the bar for cinematic rewinds, the genre continues to attract filmmakers and viewers
Film Features Films
“Life can only be understood by looking backward,” the famed 19th Century existentialist Søren Kierkegaard opined, “but it must be lived looking forward.” Then again, the venerable and dynamic film genre we know as the “time loop movie” had yet to be invented, so it’s no wonder the philosopher hadn’t embraced the singular joys of watching characters experience periods of their lives over and over again, making alterations both subtle and significant in a frequently laborious attempt to set things on a more desirable course and maybe even experience a little personal growth along the way.
We’ve been unabashedly loving time-loop films for the last 30 years, ever since 1993’s Groundhog Day cemented the concept of the endlessly repeating but potentially fixable chronology in the pop cultural consciousness (following a few decades of TV table-setting with episodes of sci-fi classics, from The Twilight Zone’s “Judgment Night” in 1959 through Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “Cause and Effect” in 1992).
Groundhog Day director and co-writer Harold Ramis’ brilliant exploration of the myriad comedic and dramatic possibilities of reliving the same period ad infinitum, bolstered by Bill Murray’s perfectly modulated journey from self-absorbed boor to epiphany-attaining, romantic humanist. The film became the gold-standard for what the time-loop format was capable of (that it all works with a decided lack of sci-fi justification for the loop is an additional triumph).
And what’s not to love about the set-up, which pings various points on the radar scope of universal experience, including living an existence so routine that the desperate need to break away from it becomes inevitable, and the desire to replay moments we blew the first time around—like delivering the perfect comeback you didn’t think of until 10 minutes later or making a life-changing choice at a crucial juncture to avoid a tragic misstep.
The desire to roll back the clock and course-correct your life is something just about anyone can relate to, and Groundhog Day finds equal shares of hilarity, poignancy and pathos in the setup. Watching Murray’s often ingenious, frequently foolhardy efforts to turn his dilemma to his advantage, we wonder what we’d do with a similar opportunity. And the notion that Murray’s Phil Connors can actually achieve some much-needed personal growth while escaping the increasingly numbing loop, effectively “unsticking” himself in his own life, is downright transcendent.
And thus, a genre was born. Before long, movies began to explore and expand the time-loop notion. In 2011’s Source Code, director Duncan Jones fuses the format to an action thriller, with Jake Gyllenhaal repeatedly reliving the same eight minutes of another person’s life in an urgent bid to identify a train bomber; not only does the film add an exciting ticking-clock element to the time-loop concept, the sacrificial nature of Gyllenhaal’s mission provides a redemptive personal twist that offers hope for a happier ending.
In another action-centric take, director Doug Liman’s Edge Of Tomorrow (alternately known by its evocative tag line, Live, Die, Repeat), Tom Cruise’s non-combat military officer finds himself in a repeating loop of death and reawakening as he seeks to thwart an alien invasion. He recruits Emily Blunt’s heroic solider—again and again with increasing efficiency—to launch a constantly failing and reworked series of stratagems. The film uses its mutable timeline to tweak the bond of trust that Cruise must repeatedly forge with Blunt, only to have their personal connection undone when they emerge victorious.
Filmmaker Max Barbakow’s Palm Springs reframes the concept in rom-com terms when, after a weekend wedding, Sarah (Cristin Milioti) finds herself trapped in a time loop with her one-night stand Nyles (Andy Samberg), who’s already been stuck for some time. Forced to repeatedly relive the same day—and contend with Nyles’ similarly trapped nemesis Roy (J.K. Simmons)—the couple cycle through literalized pitfalls of honesty and responsibility in a deepening relationship, until commitment leads them to finally try to escape the loop. Even more poignantly and audaciously than Groundhog Day, the film uses its high concept as a metaphor for facing the risk of real, sustained change to escape a destructive and hurtful routine.
There are ever more entries in the time-loop genre: 12 Monkeys, building on the promise of one of the grandaddies of the form, the 1962 French film, La Jetée, posits a distinctly nihilistic prospect that time loops may feed the problems they hope to correct; Happy Death Day fuses the format to both horror and pitch-black comedy as the heroine must solve her own murder and confront some of her questionable life choices; Doctor Strange adds a superheroic element as the sorcerer endlessly rewinds time to frustrate Dark Dimension invader Dormammu into defeat; Looper plays a longer game with its rebounding than most, to great effect; Netflix’s Russian Doll, one of the most direct descendants of Groundhog Day, brought the concept to limited series TV, where it could be explored in detailed, nuanced terms.
In almost all of its disparate forms, the time-loop film genre leans on one consistent element: the optimistic notion that, no matter how challenging and seemingly doomed to failure the situation, it’s never too late to effect meaningful and lasting change. And with the right sci-fi plot device at hand, even Kierkegaard might be tempted to look back with an eye towards making his life better.
52 Comments
It’s a shame though that this movie essentially destroyed the friendship of Murray and Ramis. They didn’t reconcile until right before Ramis died.
Murray seems like kind of an asshole. In fact it seems most celebrities, male or female, are assholes.
Except Tim Allen miriteJesus, I can’t believe I starred a chest Rockwell comment.
I’m like one of those fish that blinds you with a dazzling array of colors and then eats you.Folk at AV Club: Ignore Chest RockwellMe: *wakes up to 25 responses**dances*
you have 5 different accounts and they all suck
Murray’s been a known narcissist since his SNL days. His brand of humor rides on being the stinker, the guy who knows he’s quicker and cooler than everyone around him. He made that work against type in Lost in Translation and Rushmore, but mostly he’s a celebration of himself. He’d probably be a blast to have a few drinks with, but you know he’d be talking shit about you later.
I admit I loved Lost In Translation.
Oh I did too, but there’s no question he was playing the sad clown for that movie, as if everything we’d seen from him previously was difficult in some way.
No more so than “most” of their fans.
“Life can only be understood by looking backward,” the famed 19th Century existentialist Søren Kierkegaard opined, “but it must be lived looking forward.” Then again, the venerable and dynamic film genre we know as the “time loop movie” had yet to be inventedThe genre was invented outside of film in “The Defence of Duffer’s Drift” from 1904. Edge of Tomorrow was thus bringing it back to its roots in military tactics.
There are ever more entries in the time-loop genre: 12 Monkeys, building
on the promise of one of the grandaddies of the form, the 1962 French
film, La Jetée, posits a distinctly nihilistic prospect that time loops
may feed the problems they hope to correct
12 Monkeys & the original Terminator are great scifi movies, but they aren’t stories containing multiple loop iterations. Instead, it’s a stable loop where each iteration would be identical, so there’s no need to see more once you get to the end.
Looper plays a longer game with its rebounding than most, to great effect
Looper is unlike 12 Monkeys or Groundhog Day and instead follows Back to the Future rules, which is to say no coherent rules at all (which I think is only acceptable in a comedy, so Looper is just a bad movie).
In almost all of its disparate forms, the time-loop film genre leans on
one consistent element: the optimistic notion that, no matter how
challenging and seemingly doomed to failure the situation, it’s never
too late to effect meaningful and lasting change.
That doesn’t apply to stable time loop stories like La Jetée (which are, incidentally, the only kind of time travel story consistent with our current understanding of physics).
this is my favourite kind of nerd corrections, thank you.
Perhaps that was a reference to the 12 Monkeys tv series? I haven’t seen it, but I understand the time-travel mechanics are different from the movie’s.
The movie is explicitly inspired by La Jetee and forms a stable time loop, as described above.
Do you really think Back to the Future has no coherent rules, or is the problem just that it breaks too many rules to properly hold together? I can’t recall any specific problems with its time travel plot (though I don’t necessarily dispute that they exist) and I never saw Looper, so I don’t know how precise the comparison is meant to be.
What determines the speed at which the picture fades?
How well he plays guitar.Here’s how I understand time travel in BTTF: It’s wildly inaccurate and unscientific, but it is consistent. We almost always see it from Marty’s POV. When he changes events in the past it takes a moment for the new timeline to reset (not a fixed length of time. It varies greatly). That’s why you see the picture of him and his siblings fade away and then back in.The scene in BTTF 2 where Biff returns to 2015 after giving himself the sports almanac in 1955 was cut down. Originally he was supposed to fade away, because this version of Biff no longer existed (the producers thought this was too confusing for the audience, so the scene was cut). The timestream reset to the version where Biff is a millionaire. We can only assume he had died at some point in this timeline since he fades away.There’s an element of fate at play I think. There are a limited number of outcomes in the BTTF universe (like faces in the McFly genepool). Someone had to be taken in by Elaine after getting hit by her dad’s car. Someone had to get together at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance, whether that be George and Lorraine, Marty and Lorraine, or Biff and Lorraine. Someone had to go to jail in 2015 in BTTF 2. Newspapers printed had to have very similar stories concerning the same people in each timeline. The mall was going to be named after pine trees whether there were twins or a lone pine. The ravine had to be named after someone who fell into it.I would be happy to provide more examples or clarify anything that you think is incomplete.
Probability of their parents not getting together?
Have you seen the movie Triangle (2009) starring Melissa George, it’s a variant which you could argue is a merger between two of the types mentioned above. I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you which is why I haven’t gone into more detail (it’s well worth a watch IMO!).
I have seen Triangle. It’s not as good as TimeCrimes (which
uses a stable timeloop), but it can be defended as depicting hell
rather than scifi time travel.
Oh good, you’ve seen it so I can talk about it more. I think it’s more Purgatory instead of Hell as Charon in the form of the taxi driver asks her a question from what I remember and once she answers it in terms of acknowledging what she’s done, she can pass on but she keeps failing at that step.As purely a time travel movie, I’ve seen people construct massive speadsheets tracking it all but at a simpler level, I got the impression that Loop 1 led to Loop 2 because she took her knowledge to alter 1, from 2 to create 3 and so on but eventually she was looped back around to 1 again. Yes because she was in the Afterlife which is how it could be engineered but I found it an interesting variant on the whole question as to why people just didn’t do something different to change things?
I heard Bill Murray was mean to the groundhog.
On behalf of all rodents, I proclaim, “CANCEL!”
I think he got bit by it at some point.
The groundhog was responsible for Murray being forced to listen to a seemingly endless loop of “I’ve Got you Babe” and its repetitive chorus every morning, let alone having to encounter cheeseball Ned Ryerson on the street. What do you expect?
Was the groundhog specifically responsible for it? Is this some elaborate fan fic?
Anyone who’s not watched One Minute Time Machine has missed out on one of the true treats of this micro-genre.
Haha, that was great. The montage near the end especially.
The X-Files also did a time loop episode (“Monday”), that was quite enjoyable. The clever twist in that one was that the person going through the loop was NOT one of the main characters.
There are a lot of time loop episodes of television. I just saw one in the series Travelers. Which reminds me that Stargate SG-1 also had a time loop episode.
I wonder if there’s ever been a time loop story that’s from the perspective of the characters who aren’t stuck in the loop, so that what they experience is one character coming in all frantic and doing all these weird things and seemingly being able to predict the future. And they conclude that either it’s a big elaborate scheme, or they just witnessed the end of a time loop.
“Try, Try” from the most recent Twilight Zone.
Bill Murray had an aneurysm in his sleep. Oliver Sacks studies the phenomenon and writes a book.
One of my favorite episodes. You know, the character going through the loop was played by Carol Burnett’s daughter, Carrie Hamilton. This initial association with Vince Gilligan (who co-wrote that episode) ultimately led to Carol Burnett appearing on “Better Call Saul”.
‘90s Outer Limits did one with Kevin Nealon. Wonder if he told the script writer: “Good idea for a story Groundhog Day I’d like to hear how you came up with it.”
And then there’s Happy Death Day 2U, which actually expands on the concept in a bunch of fun ways by digging into how the loop was created in the first place, including the reveal that the minor comic relief roommate from the first movie is actually a genius and really nice guy who we just happened to catch on a bad morning the first time around. The director has said he hopes to make another one which will also tie into Freaky, which I so dearly hope happens.
I really liked the Frank Grillo movie, ‘Boss Level’. Equating the time loop to a video game was a nice touch. Die, learn a little more, try again and again until you succeed. Much like ‘Edge of Tomorrow’, but overtly gamey.One of my favorite time loop TV episodes was Stargate: SG-1’s ‘Window of Opportunity’.
Still waiting for a Steve Grillo movie.
Howid, didjoo zee my zizzle reel
“Dob shelv liggeh! I’m egg-zdreemly dum-vounded!”
I think the 2007 Spanish movie Timecrimes fits, as far as the time loop thing goes.If it doesn’t, so what – it’s a brilliant movie. Seriously. Even if you don’t like subtitles, plow through. It’s scary, funny, sad and ingeniously plotted.
Seen it, it’s great.Also recommend from this genre, Predestination (it’s brilliant – Ethan Hawke is expected to be but Sarah Snook held her own in going toe to toe with him) and The Infinite Man is another exceptional film.
I am supposed to watch Predestination tonight–date night. Very pumped, I’ve been wanting to see it. Just added Timecrimes to the list. THIS is when I like the internet.
Is the tagline for the movie “It’s time for crime” and if not, can it be?
no bc that’s dumb
“Life can only be understood by looking backward,” the famed 19th Century existentialist Søren Kierkegaard opined, “but it must be lived looking forward.” The Christian Existentialist can shove it up his ass. I prefer Lewis Carroll’s comment, through the Queen, “It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backward.”
But the soren dude is right in that life is understood by looking back. Now just because you look back doesn’t mean the picture will always be clear.
the #1 smartest thing Groundhog Day does is offer zero explanation whatsoever for its premise. There’s no witch that curses him, there’s no goofy scientist with a malfunctioning contraption. There’s no George Burns type playing a snarky God. It’s just a thing that happens.
Did you guys know there is a video game sequel to this movie? I havent played it so I can’t speak to if it is good or not. But you play the son of the main character.
If you can find it, the 2006 Taye Diggs series “Day Break” was a great Time Loop story. Had some added tweaks where if he worked hard enough to help someone their attitude toward him would change on future days. Also that physical harm to him carried over. Added an interesting wrinkle where he had to be careful not to get too hurt or die.
They get to use the same sets, props, costumes and songs they’ve already paid for over and over. That’s got to make a studio happy.
I used to like Groundhog Day. That is until just about every Sci-Fi show had a Groundhog Day episode. It’s as ubiquitous as the clip show.
Edge of Tomorrow should be noted is an adaptation of the book-turned-manga “All You Need is Kill” which proves that time loops defy both medium and genre
The original Groundhog Day script tried to explain the time loop.Phil had recently dumped his girlfriend who put a curse on him saying he would never find love, creating the time loop. It was also mentioned that he was in the loop for something like 10,000 years!