“It’s one of those infinite time loop situations you might have heard about.”
Yes, I just spoiled the biggest plot surprise of Palm Springs, the new romcom starring Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti. Luckily – both for me and the film’s marketing push (the trailer also spills the big secret) – this charming and wacky movie has plenty more going for it.
Palm Springs is a delightful reworking of the central conceit of the Bill Murray/Andie MacDowell movie Groundhog Day, in which Murray’s character is doomed to relive the exact same day over and over and over until fate/karma/the universe decides he has grown enough as a human being to be let out of his hellish purgatory. What sets Palm Springs apart is that this time, two characters – really three, but I’ll get there – go through the experience together, and it leans into the raw nihilism with which Groundhog Day only briefly flirted.
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There are sounds that many (though definitely not all) people in my generation aren’t only familiar with, but that bring back a sudden and intoxicating rush of nostalgia. People of a certain age who are also movie/tv show junkies – like myself – get wistful when they hear them. They are the sounds of a VHS tape being pushed into a VCR; the little clicks and electronic hums as the machine seats and prepares the tape for play; that odd wavery quality of the picture and sound when the tracking goes wonky.
The movie Brigsby Bear, and the makers behind it, tap into that nostalgia in an incredibly potent way. This is a movie that feels like it was made for me. Dave McCary, the director, and Kyle Mooney, the star and co-writer, are both five years younger than I am. They were probably just as obsessed as I was with taping things on cable, watching copious amounts of movies on VHS, and using two VCRs to edit together homemade movies.
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