Palm Springs Eternal

Palm Springs (2020) is another time loop story - a great one. 

It starts an earthquake in the desert. Then Andy Samberg wakes up in a motel in Palm Springs. He tries to have sex with his girlfriend Meredith Hagner, but she's too distracted getting ready for the wedding of her friend Camila Mendes. He hangs out in the pool in his Hawaiian shirt, drinking and talking about how one day is pretty much like any other.

At the wedding, we meet Cristin Milioti, sister of the bride. She is trying to get drunk when she is called upon to give a speech as the maid of honor. Samberg sees her discomfort, and jumps up to grab the mike. He gives a lovely speech and declares the floor open for dancing. When Milioti thanks him for saving her, she asks if he really believes all that stuff, and he tells her, nah, life is meaningless. She likes this answer so much, they go somewhere to neck, and start getting undressed among the rocks in the desert. 

Here the movie takes its first big curve - J.K. Simmons jumps out and shoots Samberg with a crossbow. He takes off running, and reaches a strangely glowing cave. He tells Milioti to stay back, run away, but she follows him. And...

Samberg wakes up again, same morning as last time. But this time, when he's in the pool, Milioti comes screaming at him. She wants to know what he's done to her. The answer is simple: She's in a time loop, the same one he's been in for countless days. Each time you die or go to sleep, you wake up on the day of the wedding. You know the rules of time loop movies, I don't have to explain it to you.

It's really a matter of how it plays out. Samberg has been in the loop so long he has forgotten his previous life. He has accepted nihilism, and enjoys knowing that anything he does will be undone - no hangovers, no consequences for social or sexual peccadillos, all damage undone. Milioti, who had been depressed, possibly alcoholic, before the loop, can embrace this attitude. But she can't live like this forever, partly due to a need to atone for things she has done before. She thinks this might break her out, but the "karmic trick" doesn't work. But she can't just accept being stuck. 

It's a little like Groundhog's Day, but with Andy MacDowell in the loop too. Except, Milioti is a lot more rough-edged than MacDowell. But what I mean is that the charm of the actors is what makes it all fun.