AN ENDLESS DAY – Review of the film by Harold Ramis, with Bill Murray

Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell come together in this romantic comedy where Phil, a very selfish weatherman, wakes up the same day every time. He constantly relives the most terrible day of his life and can determine the events of the day… to perfection! “It’s Groundhog Day!” ” …Again… ?

The eternal return

Directed and released in theaters almost thirty years ago, An endless day is one of the cult films of American comedy, shot by Harold Ramis, who was also an actor and screenwriter and had already collaborated with Bill Murray before offering him this fairly decisive role for the rest of his career.

After a little musical introduction that sounds like Nino Rota, we meet Phil Connors – Bill Murray – , weather presenter for a television channel. His behavior with his colleagues, as soon as he is no longer on the air, makes us quickly understand who we are dealing with: a very unpleasant and atrabilaire, cynical and even boorish person. Having already covered Groundhog Day four years in a row, having to return to a small town in Pennsylvania with its producer Rita – Andie MacDowell, luminous – and a cameraman, Larry – Chris Elliott – does not enthuse him at all.

At the end of the day of festivities, our three friends find themselves stranded on the spot due to a strong blizzard and an upcoming storm. It is then that Phil Connors will know, for worse and for better, the pangs of a temporal disorder which makes him relive the same day, awakening after awakening. Without knowing if this situation will end one day and how. But the misanthrope played by Bill Murray discovers that the days that follow each other and look strangely alike are not completely identical. The course of a day is not set in stone and some modifications are possible. At least up to a point.

The weather presenter being the only one to know this situation, he decides very quickly to take advantage of this state of affairs. At first, he takes advantage of this supernatural phenomenon only for futile or trivial things, in any case purely selfish: stuffing himself without fear of cholesterol, questioning a woman about her past to make her believe the next day that we have known her in the past – the character of Nancy – or that we guess her passions and inclinations because we sincerely love her and we are made for her – the character played by Andie MacDowell –, even flouting the laws and risking his life.

But, Phil Connors, perhaps because Rita, not fooled by his seductive maneuvers, resists him and sometimes administers a salutary slap to him – which is repeated daily, while never being quite the same – will learn to evolve. To open up to life, to others, to difference and to love.

An endless day could be the direct heiress of Frank Capra’s comedies, with its fantastic fable and its assumed good feelings, the fact of advocating certain values ​​such as benevolence and simplicity. We therefore do not always avoid a side a little marshmallow, this pitfall being fortunately counterbalanced by the quality of the interpretation and the humor of the situations or the characters – the auctions of singles, the interventions of the insurance agent. The film has not aged a bit and finally keeps all the promises of this kind of entertainment.

A romantic comedy tinged with a hedonistic and sometimes quite poetic philosophy, back in theaters distributed by The Acacias in a restored 4K version.


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AN ENDLESS DAY – Review of the film by Harold Ramis, with Bill Murray