Review of Palm Springs
midlandsmovies • April 10, 2021
Palm Springs (2021) Dir. Max Barbakow
Let’s get this off the bat, I’m no fan of Andy Samberg. As subjective as comedy is, I find him pretty annoying in the brief viewings of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and the few low-brow comedies he’s starred in to date. However, let me also add that despite that personal preference, Mr. Samberg knocks it out the park in new comedy Palm Springs.
In short and to the point, Palm Springs is a riff on the Groundhog Day formula – a central character repeating the same day again and again. In this instance it is a wedding day that leads to a whole host of sequences involving the planning, the drunkenness and relationships forged on the special day.
As an aside, I remember reading that the original script to Groundhog Day began the story in the middle where the audience finds Phil Connors (Bill Murray) already experiencing many years in the time loop. That was ultimately discarded by director Harold Ramis but that idea is exactly where Palm Springs begins.
Samberg plays Nyles who awakes each day next to his girlfriend (who is cheating on him) at the wedding of friends Tala and Abe. He meets guest Sarah (Cristin Milioti) at a wedding he’s experienced possibly hundreds of times. And when she is dragged into a mysteriously-lit cave, she too awakes to find, like Nyles, is now unfortunately caught in the same time-loop.
Attempting to escape her predicament she eventually comes to accept her circumstances and a relationship starts to develop between her and Nyles. Samberg and Milioti’s chemistry is fantastic, with the immature yet open Nyles complimenting and conflicting with Sarah’s wonderment and a few past secrets.
Also, in the loop is Roy (J K Simmons) who frustrated at being caught in the circle and missing his children grow up, regularly hunts and kills Nyles in revenge. The love-hate narrative between the leads is a little clichéd but ultimately endearing and the verbal and physical jokes related to their situation are familiar but not just riffs on Groundhog Day. This results in the repeated wedding day flying-by in a very entertaining 90 minutes.
For someone like me who carries doubts over Samberg’s likeability, I have to eat my words here as he’s the perfect star to play the juvenile central character and Milioti matches him as the likeable companion with her own narrative beyond the “love-interest”.
With high energy and a fast-pace, lots of laughs and two well-cast leads playing to their strengths, Palm Springs cycles through its time-based plot without repetition and is more than satisfying given its spin on a well-trodden formula.
★★★★ ½
Michael Sales
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