Harold Ramis’ 1993 film, Groundhog Day, is a charming and heartwarming comedy about an arrogant egotistical weatherman named Phil Connors (Bill Murray) who has a change of heart over the course of a day that lasts a decade. Every morning when he wakes up, it is the same day: February 2nd. No matter what he does, where he goes, and how he tries to change things, it makes no difference; he wakes up in the morning in the same place at the same time on the morning of Groundhog Day. The reason for this time loop is never explained, but the audience comes to see through the events of the film that there is an end goal that must be accomplished before Phil can escape, and that there is no shortcut to that end.

One of the most remarkable things about the movie is that it is a comedy where the plot doesn’t revolve around a lot of slapstick or visual gags. Rather, it manages to be comedic while at the same time being almost entirely driven by the character development of the protagonist. The character arc that would be more typical of a serious drama than a comedy somehow works remarkably well in the context of this movie, and the philosophical changes of Phil’s character end up giving the plot most of its structure. The decisive turning points of the plot are philosophical brick walls, where he encounters challenges to his worldview that he cannot overcome, and he then has to adapt in response.

While philosophy in a comedy might seem to be an ironic idea, the development of Phil’s character and the structure of the plot are saturated with it and driven by it. The plot and the character break down into roughly four phases, leading Phil to his realization that eventually leads him out of the time loop.

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Phase 1: Pie in the Sky

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Image via Columbia Pictures

When the movie opens, we are introduced to Phil Connors as a competent but arrogant weatherman from Pittsburgh with a caustic sense of humor. He belittles those around him, hates the drudgery of driving to Punxsutawney to cover a stupid Groundhog Day festival, and is constantly referring to the great job he has lined up for the future, moving on to bigger and better things.

All in all, he falls into exactly the sort of problem that many people do: he lives for the future. He is so caught up in his dreams for success in the years to come that he wants his present to pass by as swiftly as possible, and as a consequence is not living his present life as he really should. He is only forced to come to grips with his toxic view, however, when he hits the first brick wall: the time loop.

Despite his frantic efforts to escape the small town and the dreaded dawn of February 2nd, he is faced with the inevitable realization that, while he doesn’t know why it is happening, there is nothing he can do to escape it. While he has been dreaming away about some glorious future, his future has suddenly been ripped away from him, and he must come to accept the fact that he now only has the present: the same present, over and over and over again.

Phase 2: Hedonism

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Image via Columbia Pictures

Once he comes to accept this time loop, he is forced to change, but hardly for the better. Realizing that there are now no consequences for his actions, he embarks on a pleasure-saturated bingefest of whatever he wants to do, morphing into a representative of the philosophy of hedonism: the idea that the pleasurable satisfaction of his desires is the best thing in life. He uses his increasing familiarity with the events of the day to dupe and seduce a number of women, he robs a bank, he leads the cops on a high-speed chase, and digs into all the unhealthy food he could ever possibly want. Until he hits the next brick wall.

What he slowly begins to realize is that, for all his pleasure-seeking and exhilarating escapades, the pursuit of those pleasures becomes emptier and emptier, leaving him with the ultimate realization that they ultimately lead to nothing and have no true value. This is compounded by his attempts to seduce his coworker Rita (Andie MacDowell), who becomes another brick wall: no matter how many tricks and schemes he devises, she inevitably sees through his charade at the ugly interior of his true character, and is disgusted by it.

Phase 3: Nihilism

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Image via Columbia Pictures

As a result of the realization of his pointless pleasure-seeking and the censure of Rita, Phil’s outlook changes again. It is perhaps the darkest character turn of the whole story, though ironically enough leads to some of the most comedic moments in the whole movie. The use of the toaster and the exploding pickup truck cannot be forgotten.

Nonetheless, the crisis of hedonism Phil faces leads him eventually to nihilism: the belief that life is ultimately meaningless. Faced with the stark reality that all of his self-indulgence has meant nothing, he decides that life itself is pointless, and kills himself.

Then he wakes up on the morning of February 2nd again. Not to be deterred, he tries again. And again. And again, in increasingly theatrical ways, all to no avail. There, too, he hits a brick wall (or, in this case, a concrete sidewalk), and finds that self-destruction is not the way out either.

Phase 4: Aristotelianism

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Image via Columbia Pictures

At wit’s end, Phil finally begins to change for the better, as he is forced by the circumstances of the time loop to find what actually does give value to his life and pursue what really does have meaning. When he finds it, it is grounded in one of the most foundational and classic schools of philosophy in history: Aristotelianism.

The Greek Philosopher Aristotle taught that the happiness for which human beings strive is not about pleasure, contentment, or satisfaction, but is rather an act. It is specifically the activity of moral and intellectual virtues in human life that is the fulfillment, happiness, and ultimate goal of human life (what Aristotle calls “telos”). This kind of philosophy, then, is not predicated upon something that will result in the future, but in the completion of the act itself, in the moment, for its own sake.

This is the conclusion that Phil finally reaches after all of his mistakes and detours through destructive philosophy. Reaching the understanding illustrated by Aristotle, he begins to cultivate precisely those moral and intellectual virtues. He learns to play the piano and make ice sculptures, he learns a generosity of spirit in helping others, and comes to the humbling realization that there are some things he cannot control when he comes up against the brick wall of the homeless man who dies on Groundhog Day every time, no matter what Phil does.

It is the structure of the plot itself that causes this character development, and the audience can see at the end that the story was leading to this point from the beginning: when every day is the same, it finally forces Phil to realize that the ultimate meaning in his life is never to be found over the hill in some distant future, but rather in the dedicated activity of building the habit of virtue, in the present moment, every single day. It takes him years of the same day to come to this realization, but it turns out that the time loop was ultimately a blessing, as it is only when he learns the true meaning of life and happiness that he wakes up on February 3rd, finally knowing how to live.

There’s nothing better for a lesson in moral virtue than falling into a cosmic temporal wormhole in a small Pennsylvania town.