As I have noted in my review of Happy Death Day, it wasn't actually Groundhog Day that invented the idea of the time-loop-that-only-one-character-is-reliving-again-and-again - apparently it was a 1973 short story called "12:01" (short film version here.) Be that as it may, this device is forever associated with Groundhog Day, and rightly so, as it is an almost perfect film (and, I just heard on the radio today, Alison Bechdel's fave film, despite it failing the eponymous test fairly drastically). However, the device has proved a rich vein to mine, as evidenced by the TV show Russian Doll, the surprisingly clever slasher pic HDD, and this one, which might even be the best since GD (or at least since Edge of Tomorrow). This is particularly surprising, because it stars two actors who are famous for reasons that suggest they are ill-suited for the romance and dramatic depth that this film (in between pretty good jokes) requires: there is the huge-eyed pixie Cristin Milioti,
who is probably best-known for the sitcom How I Met Your Mother, which I confess I have not seen but which does not sound promising, and the equally-disproportionately-mouthed Andy Samberg,
who is most famous for being part of the comedy-musical-group Lonely Island, who in turn are probably best known for a SNL sketch called "Dick in a Box". BUT, they both acquit themselves very well, and manage the dramatic parts as well as the humor, and also manage to have very solid chemistry. So, what does this add to the whole Groundhog Day idea? Well, first of all, we meet Samberg's Nyles as he has already been stuck in the loop for possibly years. He is an old hand, and has more-or-less resigned himself to his Sisyphean existence, adopting a nihilistic view. As with all of these time-loop stories, dying is no escape, so it is a literal Sisyphean existence, and he can only get by by focusing on little pleasures. A wrinkle that this adds to Groundhog Day (but shared by Russian Doll and Edge) is that others can join him. In fact, he has intentionally (albeit while under the influence) recruited Roy, a man in his early 60s (or at least played by the ubiquitous J.K. Simmons, who is in his early 60s), when Roy wished out loud (also under the influence) that he could enjoy this night forever. (All it takes is to visit a particular glowing cave at a particular time, when an earthquake has triggered some kind of fissure.) Roy has not taken kindly to this, and in fact, the first time we see him, he is hunting Nyles with a bow-and-arrow. This freaks out Milioti's Sarah and, despite Nyles's shouted warning not to, follows him into the cave where he has crawled to re-set his day and escape the pain of the arrow-wounds. Thus she is recruited. The film is called Palm Springs because that is the setting, specifically a wedding where Sarah is sister of the bride and Nyles is boyfriend to (the unfaithful) Misty, who is (I think) related to the groom. This allows for plenty of desert scenes, including one involving dinosaurs, which may or may not be the result of the ingestion of magic mushrooms.
Anyway, once Sarah works out what's happened to her, she is similarly upset, and intent on finding a way out. Nyles, of course, knows this is futile, but she has to find out for herself. Then it's on to the process of Sarah falling for Nyles. Nyles, it turns out, has already fallen for Sarah, and we have, in fact, come in on only the most recent in many seductions he has made of her. (She's not the only one, as we discover in a funny discussion of his sexual experiences in the time loop - that's an aspect of this predicament that previous versions haven't plumbed.) Anyway, soon after falling for Nyles, Sarah remembers a reason why she wakes up feeling ashamed every morning, and also finds out something that makes her go off Nyles. Then, after another scene with Roy, she steps in front of a truck and thereafter is not to be found. Nyles's problem is that he wakes up after her every morning, so she has time to disappear before he can do anything about it. This sends him into a bit of a tailspin, so much so that he actually seeks Roy out (he lives in Irvine, which is why, on the occasions he decides to hunt Nyles, it can only be later in the day). Turns out Sarah's almost killing him has brought about a change of perspective on Roy's part and he's more content in his timeloop existence. They even have an amicable chat. In fact, Roy is even prepared to kill Nyles one last time just to save him the trip back to Palm Springs. Where has Sarah gone? Has she found a way out? Well, she's been trying. Turns out she's been teaching herself quantum physics, and she thinks she has found a way out...
Well, that's the basic plot. But as with other films of this kind, the subtext is the absurdity of life, something Nyles has already recognized when we come in. An odd side-effect is that we end up seeing the other characters in the film as if they were NPCs in a video game. They are like prisoners in the cave who think the shadows on the wall are real, whereas our heroes are the only ones who know they're prisoners. In a way, these films are good arguments for Buddhism: you see why breaking the cycle of birth and rebirth is a good thing, even though (of course) escaping the timeloop means ending one's immortality. (It would probably be hard to recapture one's fear of dying and not accidentally commit suicide for real.) This makes the final pact between Sarah and Nyles all-the-more touching - he ends up joining her because he'd rather die with her than live forever without her. However, that said, I have some issues with particular aspects of the film (stop reading here if you haven't seen the film - go see it - it's on Hulu and it's great).
Ready? Okay, first, why would Sarah be fully clothed when she wakes up in Abe's room? If she was compos mentis enough to get dressed after her illicit fling with her soon-to-be brother-in-law, why would she stay in his room? Next, Sarah experiments on the goat and according to her, her method works because the goat disappears. But in the mid-credit sequence after we know that Sarah and Nyles have escaped, Roy meets a version of Nyles who has never met him before.
So clearly he has now become an NPC character too. But in that case, the same thing would be true of the goat. Finally, in theory everybody gets out of the timeloop. Are we supposed to think that there is no next day in the universe? That the entire universe is stuck in that day? But if not, then everyone else exists in the next day including Sarah and Nyles. So all that is stuck in the endless loop is a version of each of their (and Roy's) consciousnesses. Finally, of course a problem with the basic premise is that one's body never changes, but one retains memories and indeed talents (witness Bill Murray's piano-playing in Groundhog Day). But aren't those just features of the brain? Or does one have to be a substance dualist to enjoy these films. But these qualms aside, this is a grade-A romcom with a surprisingly philosophical streak running through it.
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