Palm Springs - 2020
Updated: Jun 5, 2023
This review may contain spoilers.
Palm Springs does a truly brilliant thing. It stands on the shoulders of the giant that went before it (Read: Day, Groundhog) and springs forward into new and exciting directions. And, what's more, it does this in the subtlest of ways. In fact, if you don't step back and ruminate on the proceedings, you could miss it entirely.
See, the film opens with a shot of Andy Samberg's head on a pillow and his eyes opening to a new day. His character, Nyles, then proceeds through what is clearly to him the most ho hum itinerary, which is a little surprising given the milieu's offerings. I mean, it's all there for the taking. We're clearly at a destination wedding near the edge of a desert. Nyles wakes up to a girlfriend DTF as long as he can "be quick about it." There is wine and unnamed beer cans aplenty, faceless guests (except for two of note), strange sexual dynamics amongst the wedding party, awkward parent dedication songs, and bumbling toasts to the new bride and groom. How much more Edenic could it get? But then the ground starts to rumble beneath our feet. Nyles busts into the proceedings, grabs the mike and absolutely crushes a speech full of details so personal, he is either a world-class creeper or God Himself. The scene melts into one such dance of sexual banter before it all hits us like a ton of bricks - Nyles has lived this day before. And by the looks of things, we're talking years of it.
That is the beauty of this whole affair. Without Groundhog Day, Palm Springs would have had to tiptoe much more lightly. It could have become bogged down in the technicalities of world creation. It likely would have been encumbered by far more dramatic elements and a bloated runtime. Instead, we download the world of Phil Connors into this episode and it breezes by at a cool sub 90 minutes. With Samberg as our guide, like a shaman who has seen untold worlds, we catch it all mid-stride. So, instead of pedantry we get hilarious sight gags and soaring montages full of the most Epicurean heights.
Speaking of our guide, I wonder if the selection of the name "Nyles" is a coincidence, given its clear homophonic connection to nihilism. After all, that is what this man stuck in years of the same day has become. A void.. A man resigned to his fate. One who has explored death, sexual encounters, assorted weapon firing, and the fleeting ecstasy of extravagant drugs and realized one cold fact - None of it matters. "I felt everything I'll ever feel," he says at one point. "So I'll never feel ever again."
And so we're off. Only this time, one MASSIVE element is added. Where GD is content to launch Bill Murray into a time loop without explanation, Max Barbakow, Andy Siara, and crew, actually explore things a little. They dust off their science texts. There is some quantum physics, an earthquake, and a certain glowing cave. Perhaps it winks at other sci fi shows in jest, or maybe it's a convenient device. In any case, one need not fall down the rabbit hole of Reddit truthers to have some fun exploring the explanation of things. Regardless, the scientific event serves to ground the story somewhere and, as we see, gives rise to hope of an escape.
With the scientific backdrop in place, we soon realize groundbreaking reveal number two - Other people can enter the loop! (I’ll leave reveal #3 aka “Sarah’s night before” for your own viewing). This is really where the film takes flight. Enter Sarah, played pitch-perfectly by the indomitable Cristin Milioti, who is akin to Nyles in many ways and in others utterly distinct. She shares his love for booze and sexual excess, his conviction that love is a pageant, an empty dance full of prescribed, hollow movements. While both are hysterical, two things weld them together inseparably – soul-crushing loneliness and the desire for human connection.
From this you’ve probably gathered that all the rom com tropes will be present. And they are. But here, in this setting, everything has a freshness to it. There aren’t only two people in this cosmic mockery. No, we get JK Simmons throwing heat too. Like the old pro that he is, he shows up in a few sequences, absolutely annihilates them, and then is on his merry way. The writers are so smart here too because they utilize all facets of the man, giving him cause to play both the lunatic and the sagacious father-like figure. Then, of course, we cannot forget June Squibb, who is always hanging around the periphery as “Nana” at the wedding. She may be hiding her own secrets too.
But, in the end, this was always about Nyles and Sarah. And the writer and director had the wisdom to put them together in a film which is simultaneously hilarious with its bits, typical Sambergian-humor (yes, penis jokes) and gags, and genuinely shockingly moving. Its conclusions about love most closely mirror one of my all-time favorite films, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. "We're already sick of each other," Samberg tells her in the best, grammatically flagrant end rom com speech turned on its head on the planet. The obvious question is What now? We have this completely absurdist comedy which makes magnificent observations about commitment, and loneliness, pain and human connection in the most apropos setting for life under quarantine (Is it always November 9th in COVID-land?) that one could ever find. Most of all, we have hope in a dark world full of repetitive days.
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