As I indicated earlier this move has given me a lot to think about in terms of plotting and loglines. ?So here are some randomized thoughts leading to no firm conclusions or definitive answers.

First of all as a result of my participation in this forum, I ‘ve come to the point of view that ?the most important feature of a logline is the answer to the question:

What is the hook?

For “Groundhog Day”, I submit that the hook is not just about living the same day over and over. The hook is that the main character relives ?the worst day of his life over and over. This why the movie instantly resonates with so many people. It’s a predicament we can all identify with. We all can come up with a worst day in our lives. (Or several candidates for the worst day.) ?Situations in our lives that afflict us day after day after day and we are powerless to end our misery.

So Phil gets trapped in an endless loop of the worst day of his life.

But: when Phil realizes there are no consequences for what he does, that his life resets every day, he goes on a binge of irresponsible and lawless behavior. ?This includes using the knowledge he gleans from being with the locals every day to successfully seduce women.

Phil, it seems, has turned this lemon of a predicament into lemonade.

But: ?around the 45 min/page mark, Phil focuses on seducing Rita. The “A” story converges with the “B” story because wooing and winning the heart of Rita becomes the objective goal that drives the rest of the story.

But: no matter what trick he tries, no matter how much he can learn about her from one day to the next, she can’t be seduced. The one woman he wants most he can’t have.

And so: ?at the midpoint he spirals into a round of suicide attempts. To no avail. He wakes up alive the same morning in the same place facing the same situation.

Until: he starts to deal with his character flaw. This movie is an excellent example of a “B” story mediating the overcoming of the character flaw.

(But again, loglines are not about supposed to be about the “B” story.)

The standard theory is that only after overcoming his character flaw is a protagonist fit to achieve his objective goal. So only after Phil transforms himself from a selfish to a selfless character can he win Rita’s heart. And break the spell, breaks out of the time loop.

But here’s the twist: ?winning Rita and breaking out of the time loop are unintended consequences of Phil’s overcoming his character flaw. Trapped in the worst day in the worst predicament of his life, ?Phil finally stop struggling. ?He accepts his situation and makes the best of it– with virtue, not vice.

Without wandering away from ?movie making into metaphysics, this seems to me to be a Zen-like resolution of the plot problem, so very non-heroic, so outside the Western dramatic paradigm. Which perhaps ?is why it is so hard to distill the plot into a succinct logline. ?The standard formula for a logline, after all, ?is based on the Western Heroic ideal (Like the “Hero’s Journey” paradigm.)

Back to 1st principles. First, foremost and always, a logline is a sales tool. It’s primary purpose is to get someone with the power to green light a project to read a script. And ?the standard way of doing that is for a logline to describe (briefly) ?a ?plot of a ?protagonist struggling against a dramatic problem toward an objective goal.

But in “Groundhog Day” Phil must stop struggling. ?He must abandon his original objective goal since it’s not working and it’s the wrong goal, anyway. ?He must surrender and embrace the situation.

How do you build ?a succinct logline out of that?

(Research and reflection continues.)

fwiw

Knightrider,

Perchance, are ?you a reincarnation of Philip K. Dick? 🙂 ?You seem to be fascinated by stories that pivot on memory.

Anyway, I’m hooked on the premise. ?Proof: ?the logline came to mind several times today in spite of the being out in wild, reveling in a glorious fall day. ?However, I think it needs to be tweaked a little. ?Here’s my take:

After being implanted with false memories of a murder, a rookie detective must reconcile her memory with the physical evidence to catch the real killer.
(25 words)

I was inclined to delete the word ‘real’, but then thought that maybe the false memories implicate the wrong person. ?However, if the ?false evidence is designed merely to lead her on a snipe hunt, on a trail ?of “evidence” leading nowhere, then I think you can drop that word.

Best wishes with the one. ?This is a movie I would like to see.