‘Palm Springs’ (2020) and What Makes a Love Story
Cristin Milioti and Andy Samberg in Palm Springs.
Spoilers ahead!
“What if we get sick of each other?”
“We’re already sick of each other. It’s the best.”
There is something so inherently romantic about two people choosing each other. It’s why the world loves stories of forbidden love — of people choosing to love each other in spite of the world. It’s why we watch rom-coms and love to root for will-they-or-won’t-they couples in our favorite TV shows. It’s why I love Palm Springs (dir. Max Barbakow).
I once took a class on time-travel and time-loop movies, and let me tell you, Palm Springs is just the latest in a long line of time-loop movies. Groundhog Day. Happy Death Day. Happy Death Day 2 U. But whereas previous time-loop movies featured one person going through the loop alone, Palm Springs forces its protagonists, Nyles (Andy Samberg) and Sarah (Cristin Milioti), to endure an infinite amount of Saturdays together.
However, it also takes great pains to show us that they don’t exactly need each other. Nyles has perfected existence in the loop long before Sarah crashes headfirst into his timeline. Sarah figures out how to escape long after Nyles has made peace with staying in the loop forever. Neither of them truly needs the other one, but attracted like magnets, they find themselves spending every single day together.
One could argue that it’s just simple logic. After all, why spend any time trying to get close with someone who won’t remember you tomorrow when you can just spend your days with the only person who understands you? But when you look at Palm Springs in the context of other time-loop films, the answer gets a little bit more complicated.
Both Groundhog Day and Happy Death Day have romantic subplots in which a person going through a time-loop falls in love with someone outside of the loop — someone whose memory resets with the days and who will never remember the time they’ve spent together. I won’t deny that the romances in these films are cute, but they’re not exactly believable. After all, the romantic interest often only has one day of memories to decide that they’re in love with the lead, while the lead has gone through an entire lifetime of lives and deaths to get themselves together and get the person they love. With such an imbalance, a pessimist might wonder if these loves could truly last when they’re so one-sided.
Nyles and Sarah begin with a similar imbalance. Despite Nyles entering the time loop long before Sarah does, the time that they spend together balances everything out. By the end of the film, they are equals who know each other better than anybody else. Palm Springs rectifies the initial imbalance by showing viewers that Nyles and Sarah are good together and that they stay good together as time passes.
Unlike Groundhog Day or Happy Death Day, Palm Springs is not a story about redemption. Neither Nyles nor Sarah go on as extensive redemptive journeys like the protagonists of Groundhog Day or Happy Death Day. They evolve and become kinder people, sure, but Nyles and Sarah never fully lose some of the dirtbag qualities that endeared them to one another in the first place.
Palm Springs is about flaws. It’s about mistakes. It’s about being a screw-up. And it’s about the fact that no matter how much you mess up, as long as you choose to care about people, there will be someone who chooses to care about you.
Nyles and Sarah see the best and worst of one another, and they choose each other anyways. For a story about two nihilists who don’t want to care, that’s pretty damn hopeful and romantic.
