Take a look at the comments section here and you will find a lengthy (how appropriate!) discussion of the answer to your question.

She is a bit vapid, hasn’t grown at all during this time, and quite frankly I don’t see why he (or any man quite frankly) would find her interesting at all.
1.) I am somewhat in agreement with Director Mitch…
2.) “She is a bit vapid, hasn’t grown at all during this time…”
Hmmm…..I saw an admission of agreement.
My bad.
Thanks for the clarity…

Gary, Gary, Gary, seriously?
Rita is not supposed to grow “during this period”.

Did you read my comment? Here’s what I wrote:

Also, unless I’m missing something, Phil is the only character who has any opportunity to “grow” over the seemingly endless repetitions of Groundhog Day. My understanding is that every other character’s slate is wiped clean and they start anew each day.

Did I misunderstand your point? Because it seems pretty clear from the above that Rita cannot “grow ‘during this period'” since her mind, like everyone else’s except Phil’s, is reset at the beginning of each day.

Those who are focusing on whether or not Rita is attractive or
worthy of Phil’s love and attention are missing the point. It’s one person’s story — Phil’s. And Bill Murray was brilliant in
that role.

Nor do we know if this is happening to anyone else. We assume that, if anyone else in town was in Phil’s situation, Phil’s interactions with that person would change from day to day. But perhaps it’s happening one town over; Phil would never know. And perhaps it happened to someone you know; you would experience it as a spurt of personal growth that happened to someone else very suddenly, but otherwise you’d have no way of knowing, would you?

Perhaps it will happen to you someday. And if it does, perhaps one of the “frozen” people around you will smile knowingly and say, “Yes, that happened to me a few years back. Best thing that ever happened to me.” (And then they’ll say it again, day after day…)

Not much different from the perspective of Rita. At least with regard to Phil. All she’s known of Phil is his “toxicity”. So——she continually “exercises extreme caution” in being with Phil while on that “shoot” in Punxsutawney.
***I don’t judge Dennis for his disdain for Hollywood. I actually join Dennis.
***Nor do I judge Rita for her disdain towards Phil. She is there with him in a professional capacity. It’s her job. He’s simply an irascible, contemptuous, egotistical fellow employee who she has to endure to get her JOB done. “Toxicity”……yeah, that’s it…

Well said, Dennis.

That you don’t get this is excusable. But for someone who labels oneself as a “Director” is a different matter.

The one changing is Phil. Everything remains the same. Everything——-except when Phil returns the next day with a “smidgen” more learnin’ under his belt.
IMHO, I see it that Rita has had far more experience with Phil PRIOR to the ONE DAY played over and over again. Just because he has learned to play the piano, learned to recite poetry, etc.———it is all revealed to Rita in that one day.
You expect a woman who has come to know the narcissistic, selfish, sarcastic, miserable nature of Phil over a greater period of time prior to that ONE DAY to be immediately enamored with him just because he’s revealed some new characteristic on Groundhog Day which, to her, does not immediately counter balance (negate) all of his previous behavior?
Really?
Well, damn, she’d be considered as pretty flakey if that did it for her.
Nope——-it takes a lot. A whole pile of newly revealed (in one day) redemptive qualities to get her proverbial juices flowing in a different direction. Those who fail to see this somehow infer that Rita is not experiencing all of this “change” in the span of ONE DAY. They somehow infer that she too is experiencing Phil’s metamorphosis over a great span of time and therefore should be adjusting accordingly. Not how it is—as written in the film. And, at the expense of redundancy, she’s seeing each of these NEW changes in the span of a few hours following all of Phil’s previously exhibited boorish behavior.
Rita’s character does not have the luxury of day after day after day to adjust to each change Phil has incorporated into his shtick.
Wow, that which escapes so many people in grasping the different perspective of Rita, is stultifying.
Those who expect that in the few short hours after arriving with Farthead Phil should be immediately bowled over, entirely swept-off-her-feet because he can ice sculpt, or recite French poetry. It’s only because Rita has had months and months and months of experiencing and knowing the real heel, Phil, that she is not so easily swayed in those scant hours in Punxsutawney, PA.
It takes a whole lot to undo the loser-lifetime of Phil.
Yeeeeesh…I’m no chick and even I get it. Many of my male friends also appreciate the fact that Rita is only living in those few hours of Groundhog Day—as if it is ONCE. And that Phil is stuck in years and years and years of reliving, relearning that one 24 hour period. Dennis Prager also “gets it”, proclaiming this as his favorite film.