- Also known as:
- Unknown
- Year:
- 1993
- Country of Origin:
- USA
- Predominant Genre:
- Comedy
- Best Performances:
- None
- Plot:
- A weather man is reluctantly sent to cover a story about a weather forecasting “rat”.
- Themes:
- Destiny | Personal change | Self-expression | Political Correctness
- Similar To (in Plot, Theme or Style):
- Unknown
- Review Format:
- DVD
Interesting wish-fulfillment movie with a clever premise - personal maturity - but a weak execution.
As the central character experiences a recurring dream of travelling back in time, from which he cannot wake, the audience has the same kind of feeling because this drama does not go beyond the merely fantastic to present psychologically-believable characters. Individual set-pieces are funny but, as a whole, this adds up to not much at all.
Here, a man chooses not to change his egocentrism and so gets worse as the years go by – all compressed into a single 24-hour period. Initially, he suffers no consequences – no matter how appalling his behavior toward others – and so has no incentive to change. He is finally brought face-to-face with how empty and repetitive his life has become since fate repeats a single day in his life, over and over, so that his errors become clearer to him by being shown in sharp relief.
During this reverse time-travel period, he cannot move forward emotionally so begins to experience suicidal ennui. This transforms into joy when he realizes that he can stop repeating his mistakes and learn from them each time he makes them in order to improve.
The central issue here is whether one chooses ones own destiny or whether it chooses you. The corollary of this is that only by changing oneself can one ever hope to change this destiny. The only emotional highpoint is that he must repeat life-saving deeds (‘errands’) each day to learn about taking the very personal responsibility that will turn his life around. This suggests the karmic principle that what you give out you get back, a hundredfold – so long as those others are receptive, themselves.
Andie McDOWELL is as bland as she usually is; while Bill MURRAY has (& is) fun, but we do not really believe in MURRAY because this is more a role for someone like Steve MARTIN. There is also none of the sexual chemistry between the two so essential to a working romantic-comedy. MURRAY is quite a unique performer, albeit limited: He needs the strong direction of a Wes Anderson to bring out what makes him MURRAY - and that is just what is so sadly lacking here.
This film adds up to nothing more than a self-reflexive exercise in cinematic self-indulgence. Each repeated day is little more than another cinema take of the same scene which does not build into the profound meditation on the value of intimate experience with others it thinks it does.
Films about their own production processes rarely rise above a form of theatrical treading water – and this is no exception.
The bored and the boring will find deep resonances in their own repetitious existence with this one but, despite its premise, it does not merit repeat viewings.
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