Ask HN: What movies changed your perception of reality or life?

It's the difference between letting grief out and letting grief in.

I owe many women close to me, who've helped me process complex emotions. But they've primarily focused on helping let emotions out.

I suspect women don't struggle with letting grief in as often. It is more common for this to be a male experience. Helping a man feel safe enough to slowly let grief in, is a delicate exercise in patience and silence. I hadn't seen it represented this well in visual form before.

It was also instrumental in helping me detect when I myself was refusing to let emotions in. Now I can tell if I'm running away from a sense of loss/negative emotion. It helps me extend that same patience towards myself.

It's such a subtle movie, that it works on multiple levels at the same time. I got to level 2 on the first viewing, but only years later assimilated level 3.

At level 1 it's a simple Romcom movie - boy stuck in a time loop needs to earn girl's love.

Level 2 is that we are all stuck in a time loop. Everyone is functionally living the same day over and over. Same job, same relationships, same everything. (There's even a scene in the movie where Phil describes his predicament and thd barfly replies "welcome to my life".)

Level 3 is even more meta. Because Phil is the only person -not- living the same day. All around him everyone else is the same, but he's evolving. We see him learning piano, and ice-sculpting and so on. He evolves emotionally, and is trying new things. He moves from being self-centred to focused on others.

The genius of the movie, and Murray's performance, is that it's buried, never forced. You're left to figure it out yourself. It's a work of art, disguised as something trivial.