One of the biggest movie surprises of the year so far has been the romantic comedy, Palm Springs. Cristin Milioti plays Sarah, a troubled young woman attending her sister's wedding where she meets the mysterious Nyles (Andy Samberg). It is soon revealed that Nyles has been reliving this day over and over and unwittingly drags Sarah into the time loop as well.
Though the "Groundhog Day" premise has been used many times before, this movie really has fun with it and tells a unique story. As well as being an entertaining and emotional movie, Palm Springs is also laugh-out-loud funny and delivered some of the most hilarious moments of 2020.
"It's One Of Those Infinite Time Loop Situations You Might Have Heard About."
The movie has a great opening set up as the audience is introduced to Nyles and Sarah on the wedding day. Nyles is a charismatic yet unusual man who seems to have this whole thing figured out, but it's not yet revealed he is in a time loop.
When he wakes up the next day, the pieces fall into place until Sarah reveals she is in the loop as well. Nyles, clearly having been stuck in this day for a while now, gives a fairly laid-back explanation of what's going on as if it happens every day.
"Wait, What?"
Nyles and Sarah make for great and complex main characters for the story, but the movie is filled with a lot of hilarious supporting characters as well. One of the funniest is Nyles' clueless girlfriend, Misty, who is one of the bridesmaids.
Given that their relationship is on the rocks, Nyles seems to take extra pleasure in using his predicament to mess with Misty. Throughout the movie, whenever Nyles does something weird just to confuse Misty, she responds with an exacerbated "Wait, what?", perfectly delivered by Meredith Hagner.
"See You Tomorrow!"
Andy Samberg gives one of his best performances as Nyles. He gets the opportunity to show off his dramatic skills in some of the more serious scenes, but his goofy attitude also makes Nyles a really fun character to follow through all the madness.
The fun of the first act is seeing Sarah trying to find a way out of the loop and Nyles nonchalantly accepting that there is no escape. When Sarah decides to drive head-on into a truck as a solution, Nyles calmly prepares himself for the oncoming death and cheerfully tells her "See you tomorrow!"
"You Know, I Once Hit A Guy With This Car."
Given how many other time loop movies there have been, this movie gets right to the point of what someone would do in a position like this. Of course, one of the first things Sarah asks Nyles is if he has slept with a lot of people.
Nyles proceeds to highlight some of his sexual liaisons while he was stuck inside the time loop. Among the people he mentions is Daisy, the bartender at the wedding. The film then cuts to the two of them in the back of a car in the middle of the act as Daisy absentmindedly talks about a hit-and-run and Nyles has a very inappropriate reaction.
"Is There A Fork In My Face?"
Just as Sarah is starting to get used to the time loop life, it is revealed that the night before the wedding, she slept with her sister's fiancé. She then is forced to wake up every day and face the guilt of what she did.
After Sarah cuts Nyles off and stops going to the wedding, he is able to learn the truth and confronts the groom. After a brief scuffle, Nyles stabs him in the face with a fork which even Nyles seems to be disturbed by.
"No. You’re Cheating On Me, You Goof."
As it turns out, Nyles has his own issues with being stuck in this day as he learns after the wedding that Misty is cheating on him. By the time we meet Nyles in the film, he appears to have gotten over it but still enjoys tormenting Misty.
When Sarah comes to their room looking for Nyles early in the morning, Misty immediately asks him if he is cheating on her. Nyles just smiles and shakes his head, saying "No. You're cheating on me, you goof." That just confuses Misty even more
"May I Cut In?"
Being stuck in the time loop allowed Nyles to become more confident and not really care about the consequences. This also meant that he would take some pretty big swings, even when it came to trying to woo a potential partner.
When Sarah asks if Nyles slept with her sister while stuck in the loop, he says he didn't but admits to trying. We then see Nyles attempt to cut in as the newlywed couple is enjoying their first dance together.
"Stop! There’s A Bomb In The Cake!"
Once Sarah starts to accept her new reality, she and Nyles begin to have fun with their strange predicament. It's clear that Nyles enjoys having someone to share this with. They even seem to have the same bizarre sense of humor.
During the wedding, Nyles interrupts the cake cutting to announce there is a bomb in the cake which he digs out and shoots into the sky with a crossbow. Sarah then comes out playing some mix between a pirate and a James Bond villain to add to the insanity.
"Little Joey Is Watering Dog S***. It's Weird."
Another really unique and interesting element to the film is the character of Roy, played by the great J.K. Simmons. Nyles explains that he and Roy partied hard one night and Nyles introduced him to the time loop. But when Roy found out he was trapped, he began hunting Nyles for revenge.
Eventually, Nyles stops seeing Roy around so he goes to visit him at his home. As they sit in the backyard and watch Roy's kids play, he explains that he finally embraced the time he can have with his family. He even enjoys watching his young son water a piece of dog poop on the lawn.
"One Time I Smoked A Bunch Of Crystal Meth And Made It All The Way To Equatorial Guinea. It Was A Huge Waste Of Time."
The fun of the time loop stories is allowing the audience to wonder what they would do in such a situation. This movie really embraces that idea as we see characters really not holding back on all of the things they try to do when they realize there is no tomorrow.
Nyles explains that he went on a crazy drug-fueled trip just for the fun of it. But in the end, he just sees it as one more way of killing time.