We just rewatched Groundhog Day for the umpteenth time.  I don’t watch films much, almost never anymore as I am particularly guarded about what goes into my head (I cannot recall, except 2 or 3 times in the past 6 months that I’ve seen any).  I felt I needed to see the movie. The film is perfect.  The idea behind it is being trapped in a single day, repeating and repeating, until the hero realizes that he has nothing but time, until he believes that he has access to no one and nothing except the human beings and events that are destined to occur on that day to use to construct himself.  There is a woman who is there, each day, with whom he is in love, but of whom he is not worthy, and it is her presence in his life, her being within this “time trap” that catalyzes his change.  The analysis suggests that the hero spends at least 10,000 days reliving that same day.  You only see the barest arc of his choices, moving from reckless abandon to self gratification to greed and then into manipulation and wretched war with the circumstances and then deliquescing into the predictable suicides.  Once he is convinced that he has nothing but time, and no way to “make” this woman love him, once he truly believes that, he begins to use time.  He learns to play piano, reads great novels, etc.  Though he remains in love with the woman he sees every day, obviously this childish obsession recedes as he heals.  Then, one day, the same as all the others, he is actually a changed man, courtesy of unencumbered time, and he does win the woman and that day finally ends. Real redemption.

I possess one thing, time.  I have been given one other thing, the love of God.