Nina Romain looks at the upsides and downsides of being trapped in time
With this famous oneliner, Bill Murray’s character Phil Connors nervously introduces the start of arguably the most well known time loop. Currently running till August in the Old Vic as a musical, Groundhog Day proves there’s still an audience happy to see more of the 1993 take on what it would be like being imprisoned in the same day.
Everyone has their favourite time loop film, whether it’s rom-com fantasy classic Groundhog Day, or science fiction themed Edge of Tomorrow (2014) which sees Tom Cruise’s soldier trapped in time surrounded by aliens – and also features a heroine called Rita.
So what would you do if you were trapped in a timeloop? Embrace the craziness, by eating unlimited amounts of cake as Phil does (cheerfully boasting “I don’t even floss”), driving recklessly on train tracks, and sleeping with anyone possible?
Or would you fight aliens on a daily basis, as Cruise does, to save the day? Or would you work on becoming a better person as Phil eventually does, learning new skills to become a musical genius and talented ice carver? What’s the attraction in these movies – the chance to be king for a day (literally) or to know better than the characters what’s happening?
Timeloop films can also come with serious social themes. One example is 2020’s short Two Distant Strangers where a young man, Carter James, a young man of Afro-American descent, tries to get home to his dog Jeter, but each time he does, he is attacked by a racist police officer and dies. Despite this he keeps trying and discovers that the officer is also aware they are both trapped in a time loop, with the corrupt cop saying creepily: “See you tomorrow, kid” as he reaches for his gun again. Undeterred, James’ final determined line: “I’m getting home to my dog” is both inspiring and desperately sad.
Unsurprisingly, Twilight Zone looked at this plotline in the 50s, first in Rod Serling’s “Judgement Night,” in 1959. This storyline follows a man trapped on the doomed ship Queen of Glasgow, which sinks each night at the same time with all passengers. Writer Richard Matheson later used the same theme in 1963’s “Death Ship”, a modern day take on the Flying Dutchman ship myth. This episode was set in the “darkest nightmare reaches” of deep space (and was to take place, entertainingly, in the far-off future of 1997).
Run Lola Run (1998) is set around the heroine Lola attempting to save her boyfriend’s life by obtaining a large sum of money, with three different timelines as she races through Berlin. Another female hero, Tree, in timeloop-slasher Happy Death Day (2017) is trapped in a cycle of having to solve her own murder. Billed as Groundhog Day meets Scream, with a comedic action edge, Tree has to work out who is stalking her in a campus filled with killers wearing babyface masks.
Well, on the other side of the screen, maybe life is too short to worry about such philosophical time loop conundrums; so maybe you can just enjoy your favourite time loop flick, while, like Phil Connors, refusing to floss. Again.
