When a film or TV show comes up with a big central concept, the temptation is then to explain it all. Simon argues that Groundhog Day may have got it right...
There’s a bit at the end of the film Contact, which I’ve got no intention of spoiling, where one character utters a line that removes a large degree of ambiguity from the last act. I remember walking out of the cinema, and wondering whether I’d have liked the film more had one character not uttered that one line. That they’d not offered up just a little bit of added explanation. I quickly concluded that I think I would have done.
The problem, though, with a film that revolves around any kind of big idea, is that there’s a subsequent compulsion to explain it. It’s what tends to lead to the first two acts of a film being far more interesting than the last. Take Independence Day. The build up, when you knew nothing about the invading force, was great. At the point where they’re seen, and the story goes about dealing with them, it’s less interesting.
Closer to the point I’m trying to make here, though, is the recent television series, Torchwood: Miracle Day. This had a big idea, in that it’s centered around a period of time where nobody in the world can die. But inevitably, any explanation it could offer for this was highly unlikely to be as interesting as the concept itself.
And so, in that case, it proved.
I appreciate that audiences are keen for answers, and I appreciate that a lot of clever writers are good at coming up with them. I’d also hate to see is somebody using ambiguity as a cover for not thinking a story through correctly. Like or lump what Lost did with its final episode, but I think, after six solid series of wading through bushes, it owed us a substantive answer. It at least tried to give us one.
However, I also can’t help but feel that a lot of people could still learn the lesson taught so brilliantly by Groundhog Day.
Groundhog Day isn’t just a grand comedy, it’s also a terrific piece of light science-fiction. The concept is simple: a man lives the same day over and over again, until he gets it right.
The reason offered by the film for why this phenomenon comes about? Absolutely none. There’s no big space alien. No experiment. No nothing.
At no stage do the characters stop and ponder what’s causing what Phil Connors is experiencing in the film. Even Connors makes no attempt to investigate it.
The film is all the better for it, too. Because Groundhog Day’s big lesson is that sometimes, it’s okay not to give an answer. That the audience can appreciate you’ve elected not to do that, in favour of telling the more interesting story.
With Torchwood: Miracle Day, I wonder if I’d be more intrigued for the next season of the show if the ‘miracle’ of the title had simply stopped one day, with no explanation at all, leaving everyone to deal with the ramifications?
Remember M Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable, too, which, after holding so many details at arm’s length for the bulk of the film, loses its confidence in the last five minutes and starts pelting you with them?
There’s no one size fits all, granted, to explaining away a big idea that’s at the heart of a film or television programme. But by far the most popular path chosen right now is to explain as much as possible, come what may. My argument is that it doesn’t have to be that way. I’ve never heard anyone criticise Groundhog Day for what it doesn’t tell us, and doubt I ever well.
Rather, it’s a very good film, that’s rightly still chatted about, for differing reasons, nearly two decades later. Particularly in the Internet age, audiences can come across as fickle beasts, not aided, granted, by websites such as this one that have a tendency to analyse, not always in the right places.
But that doesn’t mean that an audience can’t take a leap of faith from time to time, and that holding back large chunks of explanation isn’t, sometimes, a worthwhile path to take.
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