The Interpersonal Communication Concepts in Groundhog Day and When Harry Met Sally

What would someone have reacted if they were stuck reliving the same day in the exact same place repeatedly? I often asked myself this same question as I was watching Groundhog Day. Groundhog Day is a romantic comedy movie that starts off with Phil Connors, an arrogant weatherman, who goes to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to do a broadcast of the annual events of the coming out of the groundhog. He hurries up to do the broadcast and tries to wrap it up as fast as possible in order to go home early. A strange snowstorm suddenly occurred, and Phil was forced to stay another night in Punxsutawney, which lead him to be stuck in a time loop. When he woke up the next morning, he was surprised that everything was exactly the same as the previous day. Phil felt that he was in a bad dream, but when he woke the following day repeating itself, he realizes that he is not dream and tries to find a way out of the loophole. From drunk driving to manipulating people to committing suicide, Phil tries his hardest to get out of the time loop. Finally, when he accepted his fate and made the best out of it, then he was finally free from the time loop when he started living his life to the fullest.

The movie Groundhog Day displays many scenarios if one is trapped at the same place on the same day. How would you spend your day repeatedly? Phil was drinking at the bar and speaking to a drunk guy. Phil Askes “What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same and nothing you did mattered?” The drunk guy responded, “That about sums it up for me.” This part of the movie lead Phil to think that there isn’t any value in whatever he’s does in life. This led Phil into heavily drinking and driving crazy away from the cops, getting arrested and thrown into jail. Steve McCornack wrote, “Our self-concepts often lead us to make self-fulfilling prophecies- predictions about future interactions that lead us to behave in ways that ensure that interaction unfolds as we predicted.” (39) Phil saw no value in what he did, so he did whatever he wanted without thinking of its consequences. He treated each day as if it was a game. As the days pass, he grows more tiresome of the same routine, then he thought the only to get out of the time loop is to learn more about Rita and make her fall in love with him. No matter what he did, Rita always rejected him. This event lead Phil feeling hopeless to the point where he tries to attempt multiple suicide. He finally gave up and told Rita the truth and ask her for help. Rita agreed to spending the night with Phil and he learned a lot about himself. The next day he woke up alone again, but this time it was different. He begins to learn the piano, ice sculpting, and became more generous toward everyone. Phil started sympathizing another people’s suffering other than his own and became the town’s hero. Rita saw the new genuine Phil and fall in love with him. Phil fell asleep next to Rita and woke up with her by his side. He was overfilled with joy that the curse has been broken.

The way someone views life can be portrayed through their character. At the beginning of the movie, Phil Connor was a narcissistic forecaster. He was belittling his current career and his coworker when he bragged about leaving his current job because a big network was interested in him. Throughout the movie, Phil displayed a lot of nonverbal communication. McCornack defined nonverbal communication as “intentional or unintentional transmission of meaning through an individual’s nonspoken physical and behavioral cues.” (223) Phil uses a lot of eye rolling, sighing, and sarcasms. He mocked the town people of Punxsutawney by calling them hicks. He made sure his coworker know he doesn’t want to be there and is better than everyone there. This behavior Phil displayed made it hard for his coworker to be around him. Nobody likes a snob that is always looking down on you.

After watching this movie and reading the corresponding article, I can see this movie is linked to the transcendence of gender-based role. Suzanne Daughton wrote:The thicker the ego boundaries encouraged in masculine socialization help us understand why later in life men generally keep some distance from others and, especially, from other people’s problems. Rigid ego boundaries also suggest why men in general are unlikely to take responsibility for other people and situations, and why they tend not to experience another’s feelings as their own (140).

Phil had a big ego and likes showing off his masculinity. He tries to manipulate the women by learning about them and using that knowledge as an advantage. He manipulated Nancy to have sex with him, but he couldn’t do the same to Rita. He failed to keep a real connection with both females due to his big ego. After many failed attempts to get Rita to fall in love with him and getting out of the time loop, he finally starts embracing his life. His ego begins to shrink. He starts learning new hobbies for himself and helping strangers that never ask for help. You can see the transcendence from the masculine trait to a more feminine trait when he was very saddened, not being able to save an uncontrollable death of a homeless old man. This shows that he can experience another’s feelings and how precious life is and puts Phil on the right path to changing.

Interpersonal communication is getting to know someone on a personal level rather than having an ulterior motive. Daughton wrote, “He has found his purpose serving others, and has achieved a complete transformation of the self he desired. This is clearest in his relationship with Rita; Rather than pursuing sex before, or in place of intimacy (a stereotypically masculine desire), he is now content with intimacy before, or in place of sex (a stereotypically feminine value).” (151) Phil really matured a lot near the end of the movie. Phil saw a kid fall out of a tree and every day he decides to catch the kid, knowing that kid won’t say “Thank you”, but he knows it’s the right thing to do. He started doing many selfless acts and help strangers in Punxsutawney that made him happier. These little things he does without being asked, made the town people fall in love with him and they became his friends.

Similar to Phil, Henry and Sally in the movie When Harry Met Sally, they also had communication issues. The theme of the movie revolves around Harry’s idea that “men and women can’t be friends.” In the beginning of the movie, Harry is very straightforward and masculine especially when he is on the road trip with Sally. He comes onto Sally by one pit stop of their drive and Sally does not agree with it. Sally seems more reserved and Harry even calls her out on her never having “good sex” with any men and ask her to stay one night in a motel with him. Sally is driving with a guy she just met so she disclosed herself because he is still a stranger. It is inappropriate for Harry to hit on Sally because at that time he was going out with one of her good friends, and she wants to set her boundary for him. This movie is gender based because Harry said all men think about sex and they can’t just be friend with a girl you find attractive. Sally disagreed and tried to defend herself. As the movie moves forward to Harry’s divorce and Sally and Joe’s breakup, it seems as if Harry is more emotional than Sally. Harry takes his divorce hard and cannot seem to move on from his ex-wife. Sally seems fine without Joe and doesn’t mention him a whole lot. They both try to help each other during a mourning time in the end of their relationships and spend a lot of time together. McCornack wrote, “Interpersonal communication is a dynamic form of communication between two r more people in which the messages exchanged significantly influence their thoughts, emotions, behavior, and relationship.” (11) Once the roles were flipped, they seem to understood each other more. You can see Sally and Harry develop a strong interpersonal communication when they engage in many face-to-face conversations and talk about their thoughts and emotions. They discuss whether men and women can be friends and later jokes about a status-of-limitation on apologies, fake orgasms, and when Sally calls Harry over because she is upset about Joe getting married. They get jealous seeing each other with another person and eventually they both begin to fall for each other and got married at the end. I can relate to the emotions and reactions that occurred in this movie so that why this was my favorite film in the class.

My least favorite film was The Children of the Lesser God. It’s a love story that revolves around James, a speech teacher at a new school, that falls in love with a beautiful, yet mysterious deaf girl named Sarah. There are many communications issues and obstacles they face throughout the movies such as: dialectical tension of autonomy, social exchange theory, social penetration theory, existential theory, and uncertainty reduction. Sarah is an intelligent girl who graduate from school but decide to work as a janitor for that school because she is comfortable in her world of silence. James was someone that could see so much more for Sarah, and he wanted to expose her to it. He thought that she was just scared and thought he could help her, but the more he tried to get closer to Sarah, the more she distanced herself. However, the issue came one night where Sarah was fed up that she was too “merged in” with him—she felt as if there was no “I”—no real person once she gives in to what James want. She felt like she was a nobody and wanted herself to have her own voice apart from James. Though Sarah wanted to be connected, there was tension from the lack of autonomy that she felt. They both want to be independent and live their own way, but in order to be in a relationship, they must find somewhere in the middle to compromise. James also used the uncertainty reduction theory when he observes Sarah from afar before he began to ask her questions about herself. Sarah revealed parts about herself to James—her past and the mindset that she had always perceived from her previous experiences with other people, in order to help him understand why she kept running away from him. The existential theory is seen when Sarah think she knows what she wants. She wants James’s affection, but also want space and silence. This is the reason I didn’t enjoy this movie. I couldn’t relate to this film. It felt very childish and forced. I didn’t like when Sarah got upset after the show and broke the glass. I also didn’t like the James told the principal she quit and is going to live with him. I just find James persistent of trying to make Sarah talk and Sarah not even giving her voice a chance was annoying.

There were many useful concepts in Reflect & Relate, as well as the assignment articles, that helped me analyze the movies. The concepts I gained from Reflect & Relate are interpersonal communication competence, uncertainty reduction, active listening, supportiveness and empathy. The articles were very helpful explaining some other aspect to the films we watched. I thought the article “Relational Dialectics of Leslie Baxter & Barbara Montgomery” helped me understand The Children of The Lesser God. It gave a lot of insights to a deeper perspective of different kinds of tensions and conflicts in relationships. I like the article “The Spiritual Power of Repetitive Form: Steps Toward Transcendence in Groundhog Day” by Suzanne M. Daughton, but I felt that it was too deep for this class. This article is about how someone breaks from the male stereotype and start embracing (or “transcending”) toward feminism in order to grow and mature (like the rite of passage). This article gave a lot of good example of how a movie can be viewed differently. Some people believe it was a religious movie, but I initially thought it was about Phil changing his attitude toward people and life to escape the time loop. My favorite article goes with my favorite film in this class. The article “Crossing barriers to friendship between a men and women” by Lee West, Jennifer Anderson, and Steve Duck explains how genders segregation is learned from childhood and slowly develop as we aged. It explains the mistakes each gender makes when trying to communicate with the opposite gender. We can use all these concepts to apply in real life to avoid confrontation and maintain a healthy relationship. Overall all the films and reading were very insightful topics of communication that can help us better communicate, build, and maintain relationships with people around us.