I’m still not exactly sure whether it was intentional that you know the premise of Palm Springs — a romantic comedy about two people stuck in an infinite time loop — going in, or if that’s just a side effect of my watching it five years after its release. But the thing I like is that it works best if you’ve done all the required reading before going in.
After a clumsy and skippable intro showing Andy Samberg’s character Nyles having a difficult time having sex with his current girlfriend, we see him going through the events of a wedding day where it quickly becomes apparent that he’s seen all of this happen before, many, many times. He does a favor for the bride’s sister Sarah, getting her out of an awkward situation, and then impresses her with a dance in which he weirdly seems to be able to anticipate what all of the other guests are going to do.
The effect is kind of like starting the story from the climactic scene of Groundhog Day, where Bill Murray’s character has demonstrated to Andie MacDowell’s that he’s grown to be cultured, considerate, and thoughtful. But then, Palm Springs goes on to suggest that that’s not enough.
And for the audience, it has the added effect of feeling like the repeated scenes in time loop movies, right from the start: we’ve seen this before, so what’s different with this iteration? The entirety of Palm Springs seems to be about what’s different between a fairy tale-inspired romantic comedy in 1993 and a more modern take on relationships between flawed people in 2020.
The most obvious appeal of Palm Springs is that it’s got two of the most charismatic and inherently appealing comedic actors in a romantic comedy that respects the audience’s intelligence, and it’s thoughtful and often clever. The longer-lasting appeal is that, like Groundhog Day, it still uses the time loops as a metaphor, but as metaphors for deeper and, frankly, healthier ideas.
For one thing: it gives the female lead complete agency. Sarah’s a full participant in the loops now, instead of just a prize for Nyles to win once he’s improved himself enough. It is simply more fun and less bleak to see what happens when two likable but self-destructive people are dropped into a situation where they can do anything they want without consequences.
(If I’m being super nitpicky: Sarah’s character does feel sometimes like the Amy Schumer bit of “a chick who can hang,” i.e. she sometimes feels very much like a woman written by a man with an idea of what his perfect woman would be like. But this is mostly just in the scenes that are deliberately meant to be silly, and she’s a better character when it really matters).
But all of its metaphors are about relationships between two equal partners. What we bring to them, what we get out of them, the things we need to get over before we can commit to them, how to make them last, and why we need them in the first place.
And the best is that it quickly dispels the idea that these characters are going to be freed from their situation as soon as they find and accomplish the one thing that will redeem them, or make them better people, or make them fall in love. The movie never explicitly references Groundhog Day, but it does suggest that the core idea of that movie is a little solipsistic at best, or outright toxic at worst.
In Palm Springs, we see Sarah and Nyles go through lots of time loops together, and we get an idea of what the implications of a life without consequences means to each of them. But by the end of Groundhog Day, we’ve seen that Phil has had what must be years of dates with Rita, but she’s only known him for less than one day. We’re left wondering how that’s a foundation for a stable relationship, as opposed to basically being the story of a woman who’s been charmed by her supernatural stalker.
And more significantly, Groundhog Day is all about Phil improving himself as a person to the point that he deserves the love of someone like Rita. Palm Springs says that we all inherently deserve love from the start, and what makes the relationship strong is the way we spend a lifetime improving each other.
Not to mention the assertion that falling in love, even if it’s genuine, isn’t enough. Relationships take work and putting in the effort to get out of a problem and move forward.
Groundhog Day is solidly in the realm of pop culture at this point, and most people are probably familiar with the premise even if they’ve never seen the movie. I’ve seen quite a movies by this point where being familiar with the most well-known time-loop movie is helpful for understanding the plot. Palm Springs is the first I’ve seen where being familiar with Groundhog Day is helpful for understanding what they both mean.
