Saturday, July 18, 2020

Palm Springs

8/10

In the dramedy Palm Springs, curently on Hulu, a couple people (SNL/Brooklyn 99's Andy Samberg and Cristin Miloti) at a wedding find themselves in a time loop. This is pretty darn good.

Yeah, time loops have been done before: the original Groundhog's Day and the more recent Happy Death Day. Still, Palm Springs manages to carve out its own place with a pretty well-written story. Its narrative and dispersal of info. is done in an interesting way that is different from the other films. It helps that instead of one protagonist experiencing one day over and over we get two people. (This has been done in shows like Stargate but not film.) The interactions between two characters with different viewpoints on a fascinating but awful situation really help drive this.

The whole thing is pretty funny, too. Yeah, there are the obligatory jokes you'll find like they had in Groundhog's Day where the characters have fun with their situation or get darkly humorous at their low-points, but they are good jokes and there is one particular recurring bit in this that hasn't been done before that's really amusing. The more serious parts of dialogue between the characters are well written, too.

Samberg and Miloti are great leads. This is my first time seeing Samberg doing something not entirely comedy, and he's great at it. Miloti is also wonderful. She's one of those those actresses who definitely gets work, but not as much as they may deserve. I really hope this film helps her career and gets her more leads. The supporting cast is solid across the board, especially J.K. Simmons who dominates every scene he is in.

I highly recommend this. The framework may be obvious, but the actual components are both funny and compelling.



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