If, in the world of seasonal holiday films, classic Christmas movies are often preoccupied with heaven, and Halloween horror films might play with some idea of hell, Groundhog Day is the holiday movie that evokes purgatory.

The film follows TV weatherman Phil Connors, an arrogant and self-centered cynic who travels to Punxsutawny with his cameraman and his producer—the kind and lovely Rita—to report on the town’s annual ceremony in which a groundhog predicts when spring will arrive. It is a gig Connors hates—and he has no qualms about making that known. When a blizzard strands him and his team in Punxsutawny, Connors goes to bed frustrated and wakes up to find that, somehow, it is the morning of February 2 all over again.

Thus, the purgatory film. Like the heaven-bound departed who must purge their sin and sanctify their souls before continuing on to eternal bliss, Connors finds himself in a situation that forces him to face his faults and fears and become a better person. In other such films, we usually see a guiding figure—the angel Clarence from It’s a Wonderful Life or, in Bruce Almighty, God Himself—who shepherds the protagonist through their journey of self-discovery and personal growth. Connors, however, has no such mentor. He must navigate his nightmarish opportunity for himself, with only the ordinary people around him to nudge him in the right direction, as if doing so is a key part of Connors’s transformation.  

Unsurprisingly, then, Connors’s quest for self-improvement begins with a few false starts—in fact, it’s some time before it begins at all. Connors’s first unwitting guides are a pair of drunken barflies, who, when asked what they would do if they knew there would be no tomorrow, gush that no tomorrow means no consequences—they could do anything they wanted. Connors takes their unintentional advice to heart. He gorges himself on cakes while smoking a cigarette; he punches an irritating acquaintance; he learns details about beautiful women that will help him seduce them on a future iteration of the day. At first, this mission energizes Connors; he goes to bed one night in prison and wakes up back in the inn with a newfound sense of triumph, smugly telling a disgusted Rita, “I don’t worry about anything anymore,” and completely ignoring her comment that egocentrism is his defining characteristic.

To Connors’s surprise, however, his advance knowledge of the day and freedom from the consequences of his actions are not enough to get everything he wants; no matter how many times he tries, he cannot convince Rita to spend the night with him. Connors spends days crafting the perfect evening to win her over. Each time he toasts the wrong thing, or mocks her undergraduate degree, he returns the next time with a new response. Line-by-line he creates a day with Rita that leads them to his hotel room together—but then comes the slap in the face. He’s convinced her he’s thoughtful, playful, sweet, and romantic—he’s even convinced her they’re true kindred spirits, miraculously aligned on their hopes and dreams and passions. But, Rita says, it’s just moving too fast. She still won’t stay.

When Connors, baffled, insists that he loves her, Rita replies: “you don’t love me. You don’t even know me.” This connection between knowing and loving is familiar in Christian circles, but Rita takes it a step further by questioning what it really means to know someone. At first glance, it might appear that Connors does know Rita; from her superficial likes and dislikes to her deeper hopes and dreams, Connors has spent what could be a lifetime’s worth of days learning a lot about her.