Review: Palm Springs

Palm Springs begins in a very open-ended fashion. We have Nyles (Andy Samberg) waking up to his girlfriend Misty (Meredith Hagner) as they wake up and prepare for a wedding dinner later that night. With Nyles strolling through the area and groups with ease, yet a disconnect is noticed. Along the way he makes impressions and moments to anyone noticing.

Noting this strange man’s stroll is Sarah (Cristin Milioti), the sister of the bride, continually akward amongst family and other people’s friends. Finding a rapport with Nyles, they drink and party together with escape being the main idea and goal.

All is going well, that is until an arrow flies and strikes Nyles from the darkness. Apparently, he has mortal enemy hunting him, one he’s only mildly angry about. Seeing him hurt and crawling into a cave, Sarah ignores his pleas to run away and decides to follow to help. Which is where things get even more weird.

Sarah wakes up in her bed in confusion, only to start her day with questions and strange occurrences that keep piling on. Chasing down a seemingly unhurt Nyles reveals the truth, she has fallen into a “Groundhog day-esque” time loop. From there, we hit the circuit of emotions running from happiness and daring no-consequences choices, to honesty and sadness for a future that won’t come. What can be done in a day and what does it matter if nothing changes.

While not new, the idea of a time loop can be fun. I mean, I just mentioned Groundhogs Day as a point of reference. And Andy and Cristin are a fun duo with great chemistry. My favorite part of this setup is after laying out the rules of the time loop, then it’s fun to see where the writers and actors take it from there. This film was a good time and definitely worth the watch. Check it out on Hulu beginning July 10th.