Category: Film Review

Leos Carax | 2hr 19min

There is a glossy sheen to the bizarre, theatrical world that stand-up comedian Henry McHenry lives within, and yet by the end of Annette, Leos Carax raises the question of just how much its peculiar details are simply the warped perceptions of an egomaniac unable to confront a reality that doesn’t place himself at its centre. Carax is no stranger to pushing the conventions of narrative and good taste, and here he channels these fascinations into a movie musical swinging for the exact opposite of what more traditional representatives of the genre set out to achieve – using songs to repress emotions, rather than spilling them out into beautiful, lyrical expressions.

“We love each other so much,” is the phrase which Henry and Ann, his famed opera star wife, sing in mind-numbing repetition, as if they might convince themselves of its truth by attaching a melody to it. Later, Ann’s accompanist is relegated to singing “I’m an accompanist” in an effort to remind himself of his own subservient status, and when Henry’s mental state spirals into self-destructive habits, he is only fooling himself in repeating “I’m not that drunk.” These lyrics are contrived by design, typing out in heavy-handed text the straightforward ideas which each character is trying to manifest in their struggles against reality. In draining the emotional conviction from much his screenplay though, Carax also walks a tricky line he often stumbles along, at times failing to find the authenticity in moments which do finally call for it.

Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard display immense restraint in playing these roles as awkward, contrived beings, incapable of expressing genuine emotions beyond those which they summon in a stand-up routine or opera performance. This disconnection only further manifests with the birth of their baby daughter who, in an eccentric, Caraxian twist, is played by a marionette, and appropriately named Annette. “This is my baby,” Henry tells himself, though once again his use of such plain language is just a weak attempt to force emotions which aren’t there. As Annette grows up and starts to display a prodigious talent, the pretence of the parent-child connection disappears, and instead Henry’s visualisation of her as a puppet informs the new relationship which forms between them – that of a manager and his exploited worker.

In spite of the material success Henry finds along his path to fame, he still finds himself bogged down in the envy of others who possess something he lacks, and an ethereal green lighting setup emerges whenever those feelings surface. From the lamps sitting in the audience of a stand-up show, to the pool set piece where his jealousy pushes him to the edge of sanity, it follows him like a ghost, haunting him with reminders of his own corruption and mediocrity.

And indeed, much of Annette plays like a ghost story, as Carax relishes the opportunity to play into the theatrical, Gothic expressionism of his imagery. A recurring emphasis on Henry’s hands stretching towards Ann from behind isolates them from the rest of his body, giving the sinister impression of a soulless, zombie-like creature reaching out for its prey. Meanwhile, as Henry stews in his resentment towards her, she finds herself surrounded by clean, blue hues, especially in her opera performances where she finds far more critical success than her partner.

These motifs come to a head atop a rocking boat on a dark, stormy ocean, where Henry’s disembodied hands lead into an intensely confrontational waltz between the two spouses. The artifice of this soundstage is evident, as waves crash in slow-motion on a rear projected backdrop, and real water is simultaneously splashed up at them from below. Though the film sometimes plays a little too heavily on its inexpressive lyrics, Carax’s commitment to the disorientating effects of Annette beautifully isolates the theatrical hubris in the bitter, selfish ambition of Henry McHenry, who is only allowed to escape that spotlight when it is already far too late to repair the rest of his life.

Annette is currently available to rent or buy on iTunes and YouTube.

Emerald Fennell | 1hr 48min

Emerald Fennell’s steady hand over comedy, drama, thriller, and romantic conventions makes for a brilliantly adventurous screenplay in Promising Young Woman, as she pulls off wildly swinging tonal and genre shifts with poise and self-assured control. In a reflection of the competing identities of our leading woman, Cassie, these disparate elements constantly appear to be on the brink of derailing the entire film, and yet the film spectacularly lands twist after twist in an angry, candy-coloured balancing act.

Carey Mulligan fits perfectly in with Fennell’s narrative rollercoaster as Cassie, displaying an ability to turn a scene on its head with a single, well-timed line. As the coffee shop waitress and part-time con artist pursues vengeance against those who bury their guilt beneath mountains of excuses, and simultaneously tries to work her way back into a lighter world that she has been sceptical of for years, an aggrieved sensitivity begins to emerging from beneath her cool, sardonic exterior. When her conflicting priorities finally become too much to bear, her indignant rage bursts forth in an interaction with a rude driver, smashing their windshield while Fennell spins the camera around her in an impassioned, isolating whirlwind of vengeance. When the car finally speeds away, we meet her at the dead centre of the image in this moment of bitter triumph, the strings swelling as a train passes directly behind her. Without uttering a single line, we recognise the emotional toll that her quest has taken – even the most perfect acts of retribution do little to settle the disturbed anger of the avenger.

This symmetrical, centred framing becomes a recurring device for Fennell, giving Cassie the sort of authority that lets her dominate both her victims’ attention and our own. Some of these shots place circular objects just over or around her head like halos, such as in her meeting with her old schoolmate, Madison, where a sole, red lamp sits directly above her crown. In these compositions, Fennell paints her out as some sort of avenging angel on an angry, righteous quest, and indeed the final song of the film, “Angel of the Morning”, brings that motif to a satisfying close. When there are lapses in these perfectly aligned shots, there are similarly lapses in her power, with Fennell gradually shifting Mulligan just off-centre to disorientate us in this narrative that we have been led to believe she possesses total control over.

As Cassie’s structured plan unfolds in bright pink tally marks, we are privy to a huge range of reactions from her victims being confronted with their past transgressions. Though the details of the sickening injustice which was enacted upon Cassie’s friend, Nina, remain hazy for a good while, it is clear that they all took some part in perpetuating it, and that it has turned Cassie into this untrusting, angry woman we know today.

Such details aren’t all that necessary though, as it is just in the way Cassie speaks about Nina that we come to know this fully-formed character whose invisible presence hangs heavy over everyone else’s lives. We see her in the way Cassie grieves, not just for the loss of a friend, but the loss of a woman with something to contribute to the world. She touchingly appears with a full personality in the memories Cassie shares with Mrs Fisher, reminiscing how she forced a boy who stole her mother’s vase to bring it back and apologise. And most tragically, we come to know the hollow, “squeezed out” person that Nina eventually became, who Cassie was forced to watch disintegrate into a name tossed around as a joke. This underlying darkness persists even through the lighter moments of Promising Young Woman, and yet Fennell never falters in weaving such harsh depictions of trauma around gentle nostalgia and dark humour to create this moving, thrilling, and brilliantly incisive black comedy.

Promising Young Woman is available to rent or buy on iTunes and YouTube.

William Friedkin | 2hr 12min

Though it is the scarred, pale face of a possessed Regan MacNeil which has culturally persisted as the image most closely associated with The Exorcist, the film reveals its most central concern right there in its title – this is about Father Karras, a priest tasked with saving the soul of a 12-year-old girl, and his disturbing confrontation with his own lack of faith. He is not alone in his efforts, as late in the film he is joined by Father Merrin, an older priest whose past with the demon Pazuzu offers a bolstering of spiritual conviction, and the full-frontal revulsion with which the fiend provokes them is similarly contained mostly within that final act. Up until this unleashing of supernatural horror, William Friedkin builds a creeping slow-burn of a narrative, quietly drawing together Karras’ spiritual crisis and its formal counterpoint in Regan’s gradual possession.

As Regan’s mother, Chris, walks through the suburban streets of Georgetown early on, The Exorcist’s famous tubular bells theme rings throughout, imbuing this seemingly benign location with a threatening eeriness. No longer do we have to venture into Gothic castles and creepy motels to find terrifying monsters, as the catalyst for Regan’s possession remains largely ambiguous. All we can gage is that this is an ancient spirit which humanity has wrestled with for millennia, as indicated by the opening scene set in an Iraqi archaeological dig site, and that it has invaded a corner of our modern society presumed to be a safe place for our children. The paranoia of 1970s America is well and truly alive in The Exorcist. 
  
As Regan’s mother, Chris, passes by the local church, we smoothly latch from her storyline onto the parallel plot thread of Father Karras, whose disconnection to his faith is mirrored in the physical distance between him and his elderly mother. As a devout Catholic woman, she is one of the few remaining links holding him to his religious belief, and the guilt he harbours over living too far to care for her properly is thereby associated closely with his own personal spiritual crisis. When she passes away, his shame and doubt only intensifies, further feeding his personal demons and thus putting him at an immediate disadvantage when he is enlisted to exorcise someone else’s.

When he finally arrives at the MacNeils’ house, these once-dainty, wallpapered bedrooms and corridors have been overtaken by the unholy force inhabiting Regan’s body. Rather than turning it into a red-hot, torturous hellscape, it instead manifests as an icy-cold wasteland, void of life or anything sacred. The demonic being which Karras is confronted with is intelligent and psychologically invasive, recognising and playing on his crisis of faith by deliberately failing his tests intended to determine whether Regan’s spiritual sickness is truly supernatural. Through vulgar acts of sex, violence, and blasphemy, it continues to force upon him questions of how this thing, whether it be paranormal or not, could exist in a world with a loving God.

As Karras’ strength dwindles, the arrival of Father Merrin heralds some little bit of hope. Silently anticipating the coming of its old foe, the demon’s eyes narrow, and we slowly dissolve from this extreme close-up to the street outside, where the elderly priest’s taxi pulls up. Chillingly silhouetted in the pale blue mist that has now spilled out from Regan’s bedroom and onto the footpath, Merrin finally enters this godless space.

It is an exhausting ten minutes that we spend watching the two face off – Pazuzu spewing green bile, cursing, levitating, flicking out its long, black tongue, all the while Merrin remains steadfast in his devotion, barely reacting to its provocations. No music is needed to emphasise this frightening battle of faith and corruption. Instead, it is simply underscored by Pazuzu’s rough, grating voice, Merrin’s prayers of conviction, and the violent rattling of furniture. Much of the repulsive imagery which The Exorcist is remembered for takes place here, but it is easy to forget how just about every other element of this scene, from its stark lighting to performances, is designed to wear its audience down into a state of hopelessness not unlike Karras’. 

The restoration of faith for this lost believer eventually comes not in his victory over fear, but in his literal absorption of another’s sins and subsequent sacrifice, thus destroying this evil once and for all. Friedkin paints the allusion to Christ’s redemptive death in broad strokes, but after the brutally unapologetic confrontation we have witnessed, an equally unapologetic metaphor of absolution serves to bring about a perfect balance. It is in the patient narrative progression towards this shocking test of faith that Friedkin accomplishes something remarkable, bit by bit letting his demented, expressionistic imagery seep into the quiet suburbs of America, and thereby crafting not just a controversial cultural touchstone, but a masterwork of cinematic horror.

The Exorcist as available to stream on Netflix Australia, and available to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, and Amazon Video.

Taika Waititi | 1hr 48min

It takes a little while for the humour, sensitivity, and detail of Taika Waititi’s buffoonish Nazi satire Jojo Rabbit to settle in, but once it finds its footing, he effectively pinpoints and skewers the cowardice and superficiality of those hateful regimes which hide behind the trusting innocence of their children. This makes for a particularly effective blend with Waititi’s neatly-arranged, Wes-Anderson-inspired compositions, especially in the visual link back to the khaki utopia of Moonrise Kingdom. Small brown tents, scout uniforms, symmetrical compositions, and slow-motion carry through here into Jojo Rabbit, each of these stylistic elements serving to filter this rotten culture through the naïve eyes of a child.

To dig further into this Anderson influence, there is even a touch of Fantastic Mr Fox in Scarlett Johansson’s characterisation of Rosie Betzler’s mouth click – an endearing sort of parental mannerism that holds little significance other than being a recurring, reassuring sign that everything is ok. In her stylish red-and-white shoes and wide-brimmed hat that sits high up on her head, she is set apart from the rest of Nazi Germany as a woman who refuses to fit into any subservient roles. She is maternal, yes, but not in the same way as someone like Fraulein Rahm, who just keeps pumping out babies to serve her nation. Instead, she shows her motherliness in the genuine care she shows towards her child, even in spite of his politics, as well as the example she sets in her self-confident individuality.

I still don’t believe every sketch in Jojo Rabbit hits the mark it is aiming for, most of all those concerning Rebel Wilson. It isn’t saying much that this is her best role to date, likely thanks to Waititi’s direction, although it is evident that she often tries to elevate her jokes above the rest of her dialogue. Waititi’s stupidly funny rendition of an imaginary Hitler does hit the mark in its broad mocking of the fascist leader’s cult of personality, but the comedy of this screenplay usually works best when the actors who are playing “real” characters elegantly understate their punchlines. It is evident that sophistication and cheek of Ernst Lubitsch’s 1942 black comedy To Be or Not To Be served as inspiration in Waititi’s screenplay, especially given the subject matter and nearly identical similarities between particular gags, and yet Lubitsch comes off slightly better here in landing each of his comedic beats a little more consistently.

As the film’s middle act moves into long stretches of conversation between Jojo and Elsa, the Jewish girl he finds hiding in his wall, the important pieces of character development which take place tend to play on rather repetitive emotional and comedic cues – Jojo making a ridiculous comment about Jews, Elsa teasing him for it, Jojo discovering a bit of her humanity, and the two growing closer. This isn’t to completely undermine the pathos of these scenes, because the poignancy that lies beneath them is indeed moving, but the impact is somewhat softened. 
 
With the bookends of German renditions of pop songs, Waititi musically paints out a social shift away from a culture not unlike the frenzied “Beatlemania” of the 60s and into the celebration of individuality that David Bowie became an icon for in the 70s. As Nazi Germany finally meets its end, Jojo can embrace a world that is calmer, more embracing of idiosyncrasies, and which gives him time outside of shouting slogans to think his own thoughts. Though Waititi’s fine balance of several disparate tones is occasionally tipped a little off-centre, there is no faulting this finale. At last, there is hope that Jojo will develop into a healthy, mature grownup.

Jojo Rabbit is available to stream on Disney Plus, and is available to rent or buy on iTunes and YouTube.

Michael Powell | 2hr 14min

When the much-touted Ballet of the Red Shoes finally opens for Ballet Lermontov, Michael Powell sets us a good distance back in the audience to watch the majestic red curtains slowly part. For a brief moment we might believe we are going to watch a small excerpt of this adaptation of the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale play out from this angle, perhaps before fading into the bows, or the audience reaction afterwards. What we get instead is a 17-minute sequence of musical, cinematic bliss that may lay honest claim to the greatest demonstration of Technicolor on film in the 1940s. 
  
As the stage disappears, we are immersed in a vibrant, expressionist world that towers far taller than any regular theatre ceiling. The camera moves with vigour, following the young heroine as she dances through elaborate, layered compositions of carnivals, oceans, clifftops, and undefined, surreal nightmares. Forcing her to keep moving along are her magical red shoes, sold to her by a mysterious street peddler, whose long, daunting shadow later clutches at her when she tries to rid herself of the curse and return home. Canted angles, montages, visual effects which teleport the young woman from one setting to the next – Powell is throwing his full arsenal of stylistic techniques at this ballet, pulling us into the mind of both the bewitched young heroine and the woman who plays her, Vicky. Acting out this heightened, fantastical microcosm of reality, Vicky imagines the two opposing forces in her character’s life as the most important men in her own, marvellously super-imposed over their counterparts.

This extended, wordless interlude splits the film into two halves, the first of which follows Vicky and her musical collaborator, Julian, along two intertwining paths of ambition. At first they circle each other in theatres and rehearsal rooms, and then over time their innocent interactions evolve into a kind, tender love. They are still set on their careers, but the sharp words of their strict mentor, Boris Lermontov, hang over Vicky’s head as she falls prey to her romantic desires. 

“The dancer who relies on the doubtful comforts of human love will never be a great dancer.” 

Regardless of whether this is universally true, Lermontov creates a self-fulfilling prophecy merely in speaking these words, forcing a gut-wrenching choice upon Vicky. By invoking the Red Shoes in his final temptation, he comes to personify them, setting in motion the same downfall as that suffered by her character. Powell often bridges scenes with elegant long dissolves, and after one particularly warm embrace between Vicky and Julian he uses such a fade to impose the next shot of Lermontov over the top, shattering the romance with his threatening presence. 

Beyond the stage, Powell’s displays of rich colour and theatrical lighting make their way into offices, dressing rooms, and rehearsal spaces, surrounding our three leads in a world of spectacle. There is detail in the arrangement of hues as tiny as the fruits which lay across Lermontov’s desk upon his first meeting with Julian, and then on the corner of the table, our eyes are drawn to a vivid flourish of orange flowers. From here, blossoms continue to adorn almost every interior in this film, with the full spectrum of coloured petals growing in number as Vicky finds more success in her pursuit of greatness. 

As for her internal struggle between lifestyles, Powell chooses to represent this with red and white patterns, splashing these colours of passion and tranquillity across her wide-eyed, sweaty face and lavish costumes. I don’t believe it is a coincidence that the same scheme is used to similar effect in Black Narcissus, or that these are two of the best displays of Technicolor in Powell’s career. His control over these very specific palettes all through The Red Shoes goes beyond the crafting of immaculate compositions, as it furthermore binds us so tightly to Vicky’s mental state, that we can’t help but be plunged right into the psychological depths of her pure, self-destructive ambition.

The Red Shoes is available to stream on SBS On Demand and The Criterion Channel, and available to rent or buy on iTunes.

Francis Ford Coppola | 2hr 16min

It is hard not to attribute much of Francis Ford Coppola’s success with The Outsides to the source material, S.E. Hinton’s pivotal coming-of-age novel of the same name, which took a thoughtful interest in the male bonding and vulnerability of its characters. While Coppola’s adaptation is not without its beautiful directorial flourishes, perhaps one of the more impressive parts is its cast, stacked with famous faces at the start of their careers including Tom Cruise and Matt Dillon, as well as some core members of the Brat Pack. Most of them are up to the job of balancing the toughness and sensitivity of their characters, even as some patchy, awkward line deliveries from the younger actors stick out above the rest.

With Bob Dylan featuring heavily in the film’s soundtrack, The Outsiders is well-grounded in the cultural turmoil of 1960s America. When Coppola strays from needle drops and starts using original music to underscore scenes, the drama doesn’t mesh quite as well. The use of a pumping, rock ‘n’ roll guitar riff after Darry hits Ponyboy for the first time undercuts a moment of sincere sadness, and one can’t help think that dead silence would have better served this scene. The same goes for an upbeat rock track that plays during the ambush of Ponyboy and Johnny, which ends in an awful effect of red blood pouring down the screen.

Still, Coppola’s eye for composition hasn’t completely disappeared since his golden years. There is a great use of a split diopter shot opening the attack scene with Ponyboy in the foreground and the Socs’ car rolling up in the background, and another similar shot that captures Johnny and the dead body behind him to end the sequence, both of which serve to separate him from the rest of the world. When the two boys escape to the church the narrative slows down, and Coppola matches the shift in tone with long dissolves and languid montages showing the bonding taking place. Coppola brings some nice touches to this novel adaptation, but even as it stands today as a cultural touchstone for a generation, the odd misstep marks it as the beginning of Coppola’s descent into less-than-outstanding filmmaking.

Grade: Recommend (Outside top 10 of the year quality but still worth study and appreciation)

The Outsiders is available to rent or buy on iTunes.

Luis Buñuel | 1hr 41min

Even after all the dream sequences and absurd tangents that The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie goes on, somehow it still stands high above the rest of cinema history as one the greatest demonstrations of film form. There are certainly some scenes that stand about the rest, but its success cannot be nailed down to one singular moment. Rather, it is how each successive scene builds on previously established motifs and ideas that gives the film such formal rigour, and which serves to bolster Luis Buñuel’s acidic attacks on Europe’s wealthy ruling classes.

The repetition of a dinner party that never quite gets going is the main running thread, coming to represent the affluent’s unyielding dedication to preserving their social status. These are cultural rituals filled with vapid conversations and obsessive demonstrations of superiority, and yet each rude interruption reveals the meetings to be nothing more than façades masking gluttony, insecurity, incompetence, debauchery, and narcissism.

Buñuel continues to strip back the layers of class and civility in the second half, probing into the nonsensical nightmares of his six central characters and exposing their greatest anxieties. Most of these dreams play out in extended sequences, escalating towards the public humiliation of these men and women. The first one involves a sudden recognition during a dinner party that they are onstage in front of an audience, and they have forgotten their lines. This dream is nested inside another, in which Rafael, the ambassador for fictional South American country Miranda, is uncomfortably confronted with questions about his nation’s failing economy – not at all like the frothy small talk he is used to.

These continue to escalate, eventually leading to the execution of all six aristocrats during a dinner party. Raphael escapes by hiding under a table, but he can’t help reaching up to grab a piece of meat, feebly falling prey to his own gluttonous impulses and thereby giving himself away. Once again, Buñuel reveals the emptiness of the threat by revealing this was yet another dream, playing with his narrative structure to consistently give these aristocrats the easiest way out of any tricky situation. After all, this is the closest any of them will get to real danger.
 
Buñuel’s world is larger than these six people though. We spend a fair amount of time with a Bishop, who only ever seems to gain respect while dressed in his robes, and through his character, religion at large is branded with its own specific kind of hypocrisy. He is called to be a pious, benevolent servant of his community, but he only ever seems to serve the wealthy. At one point when asked to deliver the last rites to his father’s killer, he only does the bare minimum before landing a vengeful, killing blow. Buñuel goes on to savagely attack the ruling elite classes of business, state, and military industries, exposing the irrational egocentricity that structurally holds them together.

Built into the connective tissue of The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie are scenes of the six aristocrats walking down a long country road, far away from the opulent mansions and restaurants they are so comfortable hiding in. Out here in the middle of nowhere, they exist in stark contrast to their surroundings, their lavish clothing and mannerisms holding no social sway or purpose in this environment. In the final moments of the film, Buñuel returns to this comically sad image, and this may be his most pointed jab of all. With all the glamour stripped away, life as a self-satisfied aristocrat is nothing but an endless trudge along a depressingly empty road.

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is available to rent or buy on YouTube.

Leo McCarey | 1hr 8min

If there was ever a serious challenger to auteur theory, it would be the collective group of the Marx Brothers. Leo McCarey is a decent director, and certainly brings a good eye for symmetry to some of Duck Soup’s ensemble musical numbers, but there’s no mistaking the mark of the Marx’s. Rapid-fire gags, tightly coordinated slapstick, subtle witticisms that undercut authority – this is 1930s comedy at its most zany and brutally eviscerating.
 
Whether one finds this sort of humour funny or not is a matter of taste. Though I have softened towards the Marx Brothers over time, I still don’t find myself laughing at every joke. Some physical gags run for longer than necessary, and bring everything else to a grinding halt. But it’s hard not to admire the go-for-broke commitment with which they attack every single quip.

Groucho, Chico, and Harpo’s characters are agents of chaos with streaks of blatant incompetence, and yet they are tasked with responsibilities of national significance. Rufus T. Firefly is appointed leader of Freedonia, “land of the brave and free” as its citizens proudly proclaim in their vague, generic national anthem. He announces upfront how terrible a leader he will be, but his followers celebrate him regardless, dancing along to his jaunty tune. All three of the brothers are easily distracted, going off on comedic tangents that incidentally make the high stakes of the narrative secondary to whatever has caught their immediate attention.

Firefly is a man of pettiness and great ego, riling himself up over a perceived insult from a foreign leader that never occurred, and thereby declaring a completely avoidable and unnecessary war. In a bombastically patriotic musical number, the rest of Freedonia is brought down to his level in their excitement for the coming conflict, falling on their backs and kicking their legs in the air like children. The chaotic absurdity of the Marx Brothers is infectious, and no one in Freedonia is immune to the hysteria they whip up.

In the thick of battle, Firefly doesn’t distinguish between ally and foe, shooting happily at whoever is unfortunate enough to get in his way. While his soldiers die on the frontlines, the madman stays up in his tower, pulling down blinds as if that will stop the bombs flying through. There might be better comedic sequences elsewhere in the film, but this final act is where the full weight of the political satire sets in. This war doesn’t end with one side winning over the other, but with Firefly capturing his foe in battle and pegging fruit at him. By applying their knack for satire to the incompetent, narcissistic political leaders of the western world, the Marx Brothers ultimately hit on comedy gold and deliver perhaps the best work of their careers.

Duck Soup is available to rent or buy on iTunes and YouTube.

Harold Ramis | 1hr 41min

Harold Ramis’ talents clearly lie more in writing than directing, but it is hard to ignore the formal accomplishment here in the theme-and-variation narrative structure of Groundhog Day, which itself has become a template for so many other variations of the same concept. It follows the standard set by It’s a Wonderful Life and Back to the Future in using a time travel/parallel universe conceit to mirror different realities within a single location, and furthermore using that in its struggle with cynicism to eventually reach an optimistic depiction of small-town America. Any misgivings one might have about Groundhog Day’s relative visual blandness are immediately made up for in this economic structure, lean screenplay, and Bill Murray’s career-defining performance.

Ramis wastes little time getting into the meat of the narrative, as it is only 7 minutes in before we hit our first Groundhog Day, and 17 minutes before we get our first variation. Almost everything we see in this introduction has a formal counterpoint later on – “I Got You Babe” playing on the radio, the frustratingly peppy presenters, the landlady checking in on his stay, Ned Ryerson, “Bing!”, the puddle, and the polka song keep turning up with slight divergences, each time being filtered through Phil’s fluctuating state of mind.

Then there are the variations within variations, especially as Phil tries to charm Rita by following the same formula every night, constantly fine-tuning their interactions. This type of formal repetition would usually just make for a cohesive film, but here it becomes mind-numbingly inescapable, actively trapping us with Phil in this milquetoast limbo. Even the groundhog itself aptly shares his name, helplessly and insultingly tying him even further to this one day.

Beyond the remarkable narrative structure, Groundhog Day develops Phil’s character arc through its exploration of solipsism – by definition, “the view or belief that the self is all that can be known to exist”. Phil has always assumed this his life is more significant than everyone else’s, and his newfound immortality seems to prove that is true. The universe singles him out as someone “special” while everyone around him dies at the end of every day, only to be replaced with a new person when the clock strikes 6am.

And yet what he wouldn’t give to escape this mindless repetition and return to normality. While everything around him remains the same, he runs through the full gamut of emotions and mentalities. Confusion, concern, recklessness, manipulation, disappointment, depression, narcissism, self-improvement, selflessness – there is a lot that rests on Bill Murray’s shoulders in bringing authenticity to Phil’s wild, mood-swinging journey, and he carries it all with ease, grounding each development in Phil’s outspoken, self-reliant, but ultimately insecure manner.

Though at first Phil learns the personal details of everyone in this town just for his own entertainment, this eventually leads to the recognition of the flaw in his solipsistic perspective. A single day to him is their entire existence, and at this turning point he realises that his immortality is only relevant in how he can improve their transient times on Earth. The homeless man who dies every day and who Phil keeps trying to save becomes a motif representing the citizens of Punxsutawney, as Phil eventually recognises that there is nothing he can do except comfort these people before they disappear into oblivion, only to be replaced with younger versions of themselves the next day.

With Phil finally bringing his life down to everyone else’s level, balance is restored – he is no longer immortal, and neither does the rest of the world cease to exist at the end of every day. For the first time they are all on equal footing, and Phil’s arc from self-proclaimed god to man is complete. In using its tremendous form in repetition as the basis for such a rich character arc, Groundhog Day just keeps allowing for more surprising revelations on each rewatch, giving it, quite ironically, a “timeless” quality.

Groundhog Day is available to stream on Binge Australia, and available to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, and Google Play.