10 Fan Theories That Make Comedies Really Depressing
7. Groundhog Day – Phil Is Dead The Whole Time
Forget the purgatorial time loop: it turns out that jaded TV
weatherman Phil Connors is dead the whole time after slipping in the shower and
succumbing to a head wound and hypothermia brought on by the Punxsutawney snowstorm
and his freakishly cold shower water.
Everything we see after the shower scene is simply the dying throes of Phil’s brain nonsensically replaying the events of his day as he lies bleeding out on the bathroom floor of his bed and breakfast room. Kind of like a near-death experience except in Phil’s case there’s nothing near about it.
That supposedly upbeat ending where we see the once misanthropic Phil show a bit of humanity and get the girl? It’s just wild imaginings caused by one last flurry of activity before his brain and body finally succumb to death. No happy ending for Phil Connors and no happy ending for us either.