2020

Director: Max Barbakow

Genre: Fantasy comedy

I watched this movie a few days ago. Or maybe it was last week. I don’t fully remember. It can be hard to keep track of days when the world has fallen into a stagnant routine of isolation and boredom.

This will be the first review I’ve posted in a very long time. Not that I haven’t been watching things of course. Sometimes it’s just hard to think of what to say. And on that note, there’s really not too much to say about Palm Springs.

This is a time loop movie. Like Groundhog Day, Edge of Tomorrow, Happy Death Day, and that one episode of Buffy. You wouldn’t guess that this was the plot upon seeing the poster for Palm Springs. In fact, I can’t tell anything about the movie from the poster. I really wish poster design was more creative. But especially in comedy movies all they do is just put recognizable actors on an image.

The main thing that makes this movie watchable is that Andy Samberg has already been in the loop for a long time before the movie starts. He’s already tried to escape and done every weird thing he can think of. So, the main character is Cristin Milioti, as she is unfortunately dragged into the time loop.

It’s fun to see one character try to find out the rules to this new reality, while another character already knows everything and has resigned himself to a life of apathy.

After that, we pretty much have the movie figured out. They engage in some wacky time loop shenanigans, they die a bunch of times, they find out secrets about each other, and they fall in love.

This is a perfectly acceptable movie. It’s engaging, enjoyable to watch, and straightforward. There are many movie that fit this same criterion. But I was thinking about something the other day: can any movie be someone’s favorite movie?

Now, there have been a lot of movies made over the years. Just in case you weren’t aware. And taking into account the age of the person, the general familiarity with movies, and this person’s current emotional state, I’d say any movie can be someone’s favorite. That opinion may change, but for a brief period of time either a bad movie or an acceptable movie can truly connect with someone.

It is easy to write off movies like Palm Springs as generic and unchallenging, but maybe that’s not the full picture. This movie could, and probably has, connected with someone deeply in a way other similar movies have not.

I think there is a lot of value in movies that are purely functional. We can’t just live in a world of auteur films, giant blockbusters, and terrible B movies. It takes a lot of effort to make something engaging, and I’d say Palm Springs is at least worth a watch.

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