Groundhog Day (1993) - Impressions, praise, and what fanfics writers can learn about writing time-loops from the OG time-loop film
Last night, I rewatched the "original" time-loop film, Groundhog Day (1993), and I couldn't help but admire the writing.
Though time loops have become a stock trope, especially in fanfic, there's a reason "Groundhog Day" is widely credited with launching the popularity of the trope in the first place because it is fun, fresh, and (at the time) original.
Yet while Groundhog Day is often credited as the inspiration for time-loop stories both silly and serious (like Supernatural's "Mystery Spot" episode, or Tom Cruise's "Edge of Tomorrow") when going back to the original, I noticed a few of its best beats are very rarely replicated in subsequent inspired works, and that's a bit of a shame, because a lot of those beats are what made the time loop story so fresh in the first place.
Things like:
The "Fuck Around" Stage
After discovering he's stuck in a time loop, Bill Murray's character Phil does something I have rarely seen any other subsequent time loop story doing - he fucks around and has fun with it.
Most subsequent time loop stories revolving around a single repeated day without consequence immediately treat the character's situation as a tragedy, or at least a problem to be solved. But the original Groundhog Day (which is admittedly a comedy) allows Phil to recognize the implications and enjoy them before the full cosmic horror of his situation sets in.
He goes and gets drunk without consequence. He messes with the local cops. He dedicates a few cycles to sleeping with a pretty woman in town, in a morally reprehensible but character-revealing way (Phil is a morally reprehensible asshole when we meet him, that is core to his character and the arc his character needs to presumably overcome).
This beat is important from a writing standpoint because during the "fuck around" stage we learn so much about who Phil is as a character. When stripped of any sort of consequence, how does this man behave?
I think the reason most subsequent time loop stories, especially in fanfic, skip this really important step in the time loop story, namely, "What does the character do once they realize there are in fact no consequence to their actions?" is because most fanfic assumes we already know the character. It feels like a waste of time to show us who they are when no one is watching and there are no consequences.
But skipping the "fuck around" stage loses the writer and the audience out on a lot of potentially fun moments, like the chance to see the character get rascally drunk, or eat their own weight in cake, or try and spectacularly fail at flirting with their crush a few times before they get it right. And these are great character-revealing moments!
I think the other reason subsequent time loop stories like, say, "Edge of Tomorrow" for original fiction, skip this stage is that they're too busy driving to the plot. The world needs to be saved, we don't have time to see the character try and fail to do anything but solve the plot. But what characters do when they're not solving the plot reveals who they are, it's what makes us care about them and relate to them as more than just machines designed for navigating the plot.
Fanfic is especially guilty of this because of how many jump immediately to, "How do I break this nightmarish time loop??" which again is solving the plot. But a real person probably wouldn't jump straight to, "Oh god, my life has become a horror story!" you probably would fuck around at least a little bit before locking in to solve The Plot and go back to normal life and its consequences, like hangovers, and jobs you have to show up for, and needing to eat healthy again. An important element of enjoyment and fun for the audience is inherent in the "fuck around" beat of the time loop story that Groundhog Day nailed so expertly and that so many derivative works skipped or ignored.
Phil is allowed to be smart
Not only is Phil allowed to fuck around, which shows us who he is (an asshole), but Phil is allowed to be smart about the time loop! This is in contrast with many, if not most time loops I've seen derived from this work since.
It only takes Phil one loop to figure out that he's in a time loop, despite just being a normal guy! This is in contrast to how many time-loop stories require multiple loops before the character will admit to their circumstance!
Yet this otherwise normal guy in the original story, who has no other known media to point to as how he figured it out even within the story (unlike say Dean in Mystery Spot) figures it out right away and does so with a pretty ingenious test of putting a broken pencil next to his alarm clock. Once he sees the pencil is magically mended the next day, he doesn't mess around with doubts any longer. He knows what's going on and accepts it, including accepting that it's not an elaborate trick.
Numerous derivative works waste an insane amount of time getting the POV character to admit what's happening to them and come to terms with it. It was astonishing to me that Groundhog Day wasted so little time on this. And it actually felt more realistic! Because of the depth of the world we're shown in the film, it quickly becomes obvious to any thinking human being that it would be impossible to repeat the day so perfectly, and it only take a couple conversations for Phil to dismiss the idea that this is an elaborate hoax. He accepts his circumstances and comes to terms with them in a remarkably short time which was ironically refreshing for the trope given that it's one of the original instances of the trope!
And by the way, speaking of refreshing takes on the trope despite the fact this is one of the first famous uses of it?
No Cause of the Time Loop is EVER Introduced - Which means no solution is handed to the character, either
The original Groundhog Day (bucking the trends of many a racist 90's flick it must be said) doesn't introduce a magical foreigner, or judgmental demigod, a prophetic fortune cookie, or any other reason why this is happening to Phil! No reason is ever given at all.
We, the audience, can guess that Phil is trapped in this loop as some sort of divine punishment for being such an asshole, but it's never confirmed! No one on-screen or off-screen ever winks at the audience or at Phil and tells him how to solve his predicament.
As a result, Phil is entirely alone within the time loop. He has no guidance on how to get out and, by the way, never voices that he thinks there's something he needs to do or solve before he gets out!
He somewhat intuits it, I would argue, and maybe off-handedly mutters about it, but it's not dwelt on. Certainly there are loops that show but don't tell that he tries "getting the loop right" to solve it, or helping people, or having the perfect date, or saving everyone in town. But he never really stops and looks at the camera and voices the idea that he thinks he needs to solve his way out of this aloud, it's not really brought up as an avenue of resolving the plot, we just see the result of his actions (a great example of show-don't-tell by the way).
Which leads to the other thing that impressed me about the film from a time-loop trope perspective:
Getting the first loop "right" doesn't free Phil - and we never find out what actually freed him!
Going on that first "perfect" date with Rita, while selfishly motivated, doesn't break him out of the loop, even when there's a pause as if to imply he expects that. Saving all the people he can in town doesn't stop the loop. Learning to play the piano, or care about others, or stop being such a raging asshole doesn't free him from the loop. Killing himself over and over in a variety of increasingly unhinged ways doesn't break the loop.
At every beat when we are shown what could be the loop breaking, we are instead shown it not breaking. To the point where we, like Phil, are pretty much lulled into a sense that it will never break.
And by the time Phil does break the loop in the final scene, he's done so many things differently from the person he was at the start that we don't really know what broke him out!
Presumably, finally having a truly selfless night with Rita does it, but it could be learning how to be a good man in the town, it could be finally truly learning to care about someone other than himself.
But the narrative doesn't tell us! It's left to our interpretation, which I would argue is far more clever but much more fiendishly difficult to write than a simple "If this, then that" time-loop plot where a character is meant to learn a single cosmic lesson and check all the boxes before they can be set free again, usually in fanfic by saving their significant other, learning to let them go, or otherwise mending some sort of interpersonal relationship.
Groundhog Day really doesn't get enough credit for not only launching the time-loop trope in the popular zeitgeist but also to this day having one of the most clever and intricate takes on the trope and indeed, most subsequent derivations are weaker because they miss out on just sticking to beats that the original story included. I would definitely recommend at least one watch of this classic for anyone flirting with the idea of writing their own time-loop.
