Palm Springs
Go! Again and again and again and...
Life on repeat. Sound Familiar?
On every Zoom call since March, people have been asking with trepidation and minimal expectation, “How’s it going?”. Without hesitation, many millions have replied, “Ach, you know – it’s a bit like Groundhog Day.”
We’ve been cooped up at home for most of the year, waking up to the same surroundings, people, news, routine (and stale banana bread); not unlike Bill Murray in the classic 90s comedy.
Since Groundhog Day, the idea of re-living a single day over and over has become a genre in its own right – from Run, Lola, Run to 50 First Dates; Edge of Tomorrow to Source Code; Naked to Russian Doll; and most pertinently, our very own lockdown-riddled lives in 2020. On screen (and to a certain extent in real life), it can be a pleasing construct –a laboratory setting where you are the only significant variable. With conditions remaining the same each day, it’s an opportunity to test theories about yourself to the nth degree. Fix your mistakes, or make them without consequence. Succumb to repetition, or fight to get out of it. Feel trapped or feel freed.
We’ve been cooped up at home for most of the year, waking up to the same surroundings, people, news, routine (and stale banana bread); not unlike Bill Murray in the classic 90s comedy.
Since Groundhog Day, the idea of re-living a single day over and over has become a genre in its own right – from Run, Lola, Run to 50 First Dates; Edge of Tomorrow to Source Code; Naked to Russian Doll; and most pertinently, our very own lockdown-riddled lives in 2020. On screen (and to a certain extent in real life), it can be a pleasing construct –a laboratory setting where you are the only significant variable. With conditions remaining the same each day, it’s an opportunity to test theories about yourself to the nth degree. Fix your mistakes, or make them without consequence. Succumb to repetition, or fight to get out of it. Feel trapped or feel freed.
Joining the long heritage of Groundhog descendants while fortuitously encapsulating the ubiquitous sensation of repetitiveness we’ve recently been enduring, Palm Springs landed on Hulu last week. Its timing is a combination of serendipity, good marketing, and being a huge success at pre-Covid Sundance in January. And, well, perhaps the fact the Groundhog movies always have the potential to resonate.
Starring ever-lovable man-child, Andy Samberg, as Nyles (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping) and Cristin Milioti as Sarah (The Wolf of Wall Street, Fargo (TV)), Palm Springs is a sunny-Californian-wedding-day-on-repeat rom-com. We join the action with Nyles already deep into his recycling life, whereupon he accidentally causes Sarah to join him. Comedy and drama ensue, driven by the never-ending nuptials of Sarah’s sister, the will-they-won’t-they relationship between Nyles and Sarah, and the inevitable mental trials of always waking up in the same situation.
Starring ever-lovable man-child, Andy Samberg, as Nyles (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping) and Cristin Milioti as Sarah (The Wolf of Wall Street, Fargo (TV)), Palm Springs is a sunny-Californian-wedding-day-on-repeat rom-com. We join the action with Nyles already deep into his recycling life, whereupon he accidentally causes Sarah to join him. Comedy and drama ensue, driven by the never-ending nuptials of Sarah’s sister, the will-they-won’t-they relationship between Nyles and Sarah, and the inevitable mental trials of always waking up in the same situation.
Palm Springs quickly and cleverly deals with its well-worn premise. Nyles self-awarely acknowledges to Sarah early on – in a near 4th wall breach – that this is “one of those infinite time loop situations you might have heard about”. After that, it adds plenty of novelty to the concept. In particular, with more than one protagonist enduring the loop, it diverges from the typical “in-it-on-my-own, so-what-do-I-do?” of its predecessors, to “how-do-we-live-with-this-or-get-out-of-this-together?”. Besides Sarah, Nyles is joined by a third participant in the multiverse, taking the grizzly shape of J.K. Simmons (Whiplash, Zootropolis), who offers another outlet for the psychological havoc of being stuck. All three are well cast and on strong form throughout, maintaining the predominantly wry tone with dollops of silliness inherently necessary for the sharply funny and tightly cut script to succeed.
While the original aim was undoubtedly to consider the various ways one might cope in the characters’ situation, in the post-lockdown age, Palm Springs prods at the question, “how did you cope?” In this respect, it reflects the intentions of Max Barbakow (directing his first feature with aplomb) and fellow writer Andy Siara, who don’t rely on the supernatural element as the main point of interest, but instead, pick at the minutiae of everyday life and the unavoidable exercise of human nature within the narrowness of the mundane. It’s all presented in a glossy, playful, compact 90-minute package of saturated colours and millennial nihilism, without ever straying into annoying clichés or cheap jokes: a relaxed jolly through philosophies for modern living, where the only thing we really need an escape from, is ourselves.
So Go (at home)! In a period starved of new movies and filled with old routines, Palm Springs has sprung at the perfect time.
Available to stream now on Hulu.
While the original aim was undoubtedly to consider the various ways one might cope in the characters’ situation, in the post-lockdown age, Palm Springs prods at the question, “how did you cope?” In this respect, it reflects the intentions of Max Barbakow (directing his first feature with aplomb) and fellow writer Andy Siara, who don’t rely on the supernatural element as the main point of interest, but instead, pick at the minutiae of everyday life and the unavoidable exercise of human nature within the narrowness of the mundane. It’s all presented in a glossy, playful, compact 90-minute package of saturated colours and millennial nihilism, without ever straying into annoying clichés or cheap jokes: a relaxed jolly through philosophies for modern living, where the only thing we really need an escape from, is ourselves.
So Go (at home)! In a period starved of new movies and filled with old routines, Palm Springs has sprung at the perfect time.
Available to stream now on Hulu.
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