We Agree: Palm Springs

 2020, d. Max Barbakow - amazonprime

I just took another quick glance at Toasty's review and I'm not sure what to write that doesn't ape everything he said.  He put it perfectly and succinctly: "Time loops. Love em."

I guess I like the idea of a timeloop because of the liberties it provides... the ability to do almost anything, to know that whatever you do wrong you'll have a chance to do right.  A time loop affords you the opportunity to forego connections yet also build them.  It gives you chaotic stability, where everything is the same except what you do to change it.  There's comfort in knowing what comes next, if only for the madness of knowing you'll never escape it.

It takes a few minutes, but where we start with Palm Springs, Nyles (Andy Samberg) has already been living in a time loop for an unknown amount of time.  It comes to bear as he drunkenly navigates the wedding party to woo the bride's outcast sister, Sarah (Cristin Milioti).  Next thing they know they're awkwardly making out in the rocky terrain when Nyles is shot with an arrow by Roy (JK Simmons).  They obviously have a history.  They both venture towards a cave entrance, glowing red. Nyles warns Sarah off but she follows them in.

And she gets stuck in the loop to.

Yes! So frequently the time loop is a solitary affair.  I'm trying to remember the last time there were people in it together (the answer is Russian Doll) but it makes a huge difference when people share an experience versus living it alone.  Here it's a man who has been through the loop so many times he's lost a sense of self, or any hope for escaping it.  With Sarah, she has her issues, a loner attitude, and difficult relationships with most people, but with Nyles and the time loop, once she gets past the shock, she's liberated and a real B12 injection into Nyles' malaise. 

They try to play it off as being just buddies, and not complicating it with any ...well...complications.  But of course they can't help but catch feeling.  But is it the lack of alternatives or is this something more meaningful. It falls apart when it gets too real for either of them... and I like how the film regularly gives us Niles perspective then flips over to Sarah's.  It's a good balance, as if making up for the quite lopsided and confounding romance of Groundhog's Day (check out this video which splices that whole movie from Rita's perspective).

The way this film plays with the time loop, the often hilarious misadventures Nyles and Sarah go on together, the way it approaches and thinks philosophically about the time loop are all quite smart, and it gives a super-science explanation as to how to get out of the time loop, but it's got its own peculiar logic rather than the usual more metaphysical "the rude person needs to be a better person or fall in love to get out of the loop" type scenario.  And the apex of the film hits with the decision, take a risk and try and leave to loop, or live forever together within it, and it makes a real case for the latter.  I loved this movie.

Is it my favourite time loop story?  I don't know.  I love a rom com, and this one is fabulous (I like that Nyles is obviously the one who is more needful of Sarah than vice versa, but she certainly likes him too), so a few more rewatches are going to be in order to make that call. 

[P.S. Was it just me or did the mid-credits scene kind of break the movie?  Toasty, we need to talk about this, work it through]