It is apparent within a minute that the protagonist, a small-town teenager, has an awareness of everything that will happen around him through the day that can only mean that he's seen it all many times before. Sure enough, it doesn't take long before Groundhog Day comes up explicitly as he tries to explain to a friend what's happening to him.
So, we're on terrain as familiar to us as the recurring day is to him. But then the story has the good sense to introduce a variable: as he starts to feel lonely, he meets a girl who is experiencing the same thing, and the dynamic this creates allows the plot and tone to diverge enough from that of its parent, becoming less comic and more philosophical, and therby justifying itself on its own terms.
You might find their decision to seek out all the moments of wonder in a single day in the life of their town as a means to finally escape the loop a tad too sugary as a concept, but the performances of the couple are engaging and there's a real lightness of touch throughout that makes for a pleasant, if undemanding, experience.
6/10
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