[Review] Palm Springs(2020) {7/10}

Directed by Max Barbakow with a screenplay by Andy Siara, the film stars Andy Samberg (Nyles), Cristin Milioti (Sarah Wilder), Peter Gallagher (Howard Wilder), and J. K. Simmons (Roy Schlieffen).

The plot follows two wedding guests who develop a budding romance while being stuck in a time loop and living the same day over and over again.

Much about this movie is engaging, especially performances by Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti. Off to a galloping start, Palm Springs slows down, exposing the screenwriter's failure to think through the premise. Without internally consistent alternate universe rules (well established in the far better films Groundhog Day, Being John Malkovich, and Men in Black), the audience flounders, distracted from the movie's odd philosophical point, that life does have meaning. Why does Nyles perform daredevil acts knowing the instant he dies he will wake up again to live the day over, then suddenly worry about being stopped by armed police? Nyles recklessly mocks people, disregards consequences then, for no apparent reason, lectures Sarah that hurting other people matters. Why? A violent man darkly denounces marriage as "a bottomless pit of sorrow," then sunnily boasts how wonderful his exact same married life is. Having escaped from the loop, a man remembers one person, but doesn't recognize another he knows well. What is the rule, you remember everyone, or you forget everyone? Each inconsistency further fractures our confidence in this fictional world, leaving us wondering does gravity always make you fall down, or can you fall up? If we can't rely on the movie's own rules to help us anticipate dramatic twists, it's impossible to stay invested in the movie's premise, that love will find a way. Still, this is an imaginative and interesting rom-com that's ultimately saved by lovable actors.

Palm Springs is now available on Hulu.