For a film that rips its premise off the ultimate time loop movie, "Groundhog Day," "Palm Springs" is surprisingly unpredictable and exceedingly charming. It's got an anarchic anything goes vibe and a pair of vibrant actors, Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti, who also happen to have a ton of chemistry together. It's a movie for our very troubled times and seems tailor made for a quarantined audience, where day bleeds into day and the repetition of the weekly grind is sending many of us to the loony bin. The sweet message at the center of this otherwise naughty film is that it's not the what we do that keeps us happy but rather the who we do it with. It's all about appreciating the little things that make life worth living moment to moment rather than focusing all of our energies on the big things that we chase at the risk of letting peace and contentment pass us right on by.
This message is most effectively encapsulated in the character played by J.K. Simmons, who spends the first half of the movie trying to kill Andy Samberg and then has a great scene toward the end that makes the most mundane situation imaginable seem like a little piece of heaven. How I can relate to that right now.....
Grade: A-
