It’s Groundhog Day…again!
Over the years since the release of Groundhog Day there have been many films, TV shows and video games which have taken the time loop premise from Groundhog Day and used it for the basis of mostly inferior films and plots. Many of them even acknowledge that the characters are in a Groundhog Day scenario with some of them actually name checking their inspiration.
Perhaps the most famous and best of the time loop movies beyond the Bill Murray classic is The Edge of Tomorrow aka Live Die Repeat which stars Tom Cruise as the person reliving a day over and over again. In that case, the producers of the film took the time looping idea and used it for a action science fiction movie.
So with this new release of Palm Springs, which from the trailer looked to be a romantic comedy which edged more towards American Pie than the genuine warmth that can be found in Groundhog Day, expectations going in were kept fairly low.
I was however pleasantly surprised that the film wasn’t quite the crude take on the concept I had feared and whilst there is more adult language and themes than what Bill Murray’s Phil Conners came up against, this movie both had a healthy dose of heart and has lots of creative and funny ideas throughout.
So to start with, the movie starts with the time loop already in progress and our main character Nyles, played by Andy Samberg into many repetitions into his time loop. We’re not clued into the time loop straight away which means that if you were to go into this film cold with no prior knowledge of the plot you wouldn’t know that time would repeat until it happened. Sure there are clues where Nyles confidently does things with perfect timing because of his prior knowledge of the days events, but it still comes as a nice plot twist out of nowhere when J.K Simmons villainous Roy shows up to continue his feud with Nyles throughout the time loop.
Without going into heavy spoilers, the plot really takes off when through this interruption by Roy Nyles inadvertently causes our other lead, Sarah (played by Cristin Milioti) to join him in the eternity of repeating time.
This dynamic of two people stuck in the time loop did previously get touched upon in Edge of Tomorrow, although that wasn’t that both leads were looping at the same time. This does give the characters a unique bond together and freshens up the concept of being stuck in a time loop as one character can show the other the rules and ropes of living this way.
The film does have lots of genuinely laugh out loud moments, and plays with the science fiction concept to show what mischief you could get up to if you lived the same day over and over without risk of consequences. The film also plays with the darker manipulative side of living in the time loop, but doesn’t push as far as a certain episode of The Twilight Zone did and pushed it towards as dark as you could go.
Conclusion
The film is really funny, and has likeable characters and fun twists to the classic concept. It perhaps isn’t the funniest film ever, and it doesn’t beat Groundhog Day at it’s own game, but if Groundhog Day didn’t exist this film is good enough that everyone would refer to time loops as living in Palm Springs. If you want to see a great comedy film then this is one to watch on Amazon Prime, and it’s especially a treat if you enjoy time travel and other high concept movies.
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