On the surface, Palm Springs is instantly recognisable as a genre-savvy update of the classic Groundhog Day template for the twenty-first century.
The basic plot finds two young adults – Nyles and Sarah – trapped living the same day over and over and over again. There is no escape from this nightmare, which finds the pair constantly reliving the wedding of Sarah’s sister Tala. As befitting the more modern media-literate approach to these sorts of stories, Palm Springs joins Nyles at a point where he has already been trapped in the loop for an extraordinarily long amount of time. He is already as familiar with the rules and limitations of this sort of narrative as any audience member who watched Groundhog Day on loop.
Making a splash.
This level of self-awareness in a story is potentially dangerous, encouraging ironic detachment. It’s very each for stories about these sorts of genre-savvy protagonists to feel more like plot devices than actual characters, particularly when operating within constructs that audiences only recognise from other films. “It’s one of those infinite time loop situations you might have heard of,” Nyles casually explains to Sarah early in the film. Sarah responds, aghast, “That I might have heard of?”
There are certainly moments when Palm Springs feels like it might be just a little too knowing and a little too arch, its own story too consciously framed in terms of familiar narrative devices. Most notably, even though the film is not directly named, one of the big emotional beats in Palm Springs seems to be lifted directly from Jurassic Park. Released the same year as Groundhog Day, it exists within the same nostalgic framework and was just as defining for an entire generation of movie-goers. Moments like that feel just a little bit too heavy-handed.
Some “him” time.
Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Andy Samberg, comedy, cristin milioti, eternal recurrence, film, Groundhog Day, love, millennial, Movie, non-review review, palm springs, review, romance, wedding | 1 Comment »
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283. The Hangover – Andrew’s Stag 2022 (#—)
Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.
So this week, to mark Andrew’s wedding, Todd Phillips’ The Hangover.
A bachelors’ party in Las Vegas goes horribly awry when the three groomsmen wake up in their lavish suite only discover that they have misplaced the groom. With only hours to go until the wedding, the trio find themselves racing against time to remember one unforgettable night. However, the more that they discover, the higher the stakes become.
At time of recording, it was not ranked on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.
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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: bradley cooper, comedy, commentary, funny, hungover, las vegas, live, podcast, stag, The 250, the hangover, Todd Phillips, wedding, Zach Galifianakis | Leave a comment »