‘Palm Springs’ exemplifies how sometimes doing less is more.
In a hilarious rendition of the age-old “limbo” plot device, Palm Springs takes familiar elements of a romantic comedy and its genre tropes and makes them better: weddings, infidelity, alienated family members, casual sex, passionate sex, good men, douche men, you name it. Although I assure you, you haven’t seen it done right until you see Palm Springs.
The most striking impression left with me after seeing this film is how simple the story really is. There are no out-of-world physics, long-winded backstory, or superfluous glamor (which are central to the plot). Unlike the 2012 sci-fi classic Looper, or the 2019 Netflix drama Russian Doll, the premise for Palm Springs is simple: Nyles, and Sarah, a reluctant bride-of-honor, are unable to escape a wedding and the venue.
The amazing quality of limbo films is the fact that the goal is crystal clear: to escape. How is that usually achieved? By changing who you are (which landed you in limbo in the first place), and by doing the “one right thing” that a greater power has designated to end the limbo. So, just by knowing that this is a limbo film already reveals some crucial information that helps us interpret the story: we know exactly what must be done (come on, it’s obvious that Nyles and Sarah will successfully escape limbo), and a vague idea of Nyles and Sarah’s character arc. All of this is given at the 14-minute mark, so the rest of the time can be used to strengthen their characters and build up their relationship. And that’s exactly what happened. But before I get ahead of myself, let’s backtrack to the beginning.
Despite Nyles being the main protagonist, I appreciate that the film kept us in the dark about the limbo, so we experience the revelation just as Sarah did. If you cast your mind back to the 2016 movie Passengers, you might remember how disappointing that film turned out. The Nerdwriter, one of my favorite essayists, did a video about how the entire experience of the film would be drastically more impactful if the revelation came at a later point in the film. Perhaps this isn’t an entirely identical situation, but I know it’s true that we appreciate a plot twist, even if it is one that we know about.
Here is where the “show don’t tell” storytelling comes in, a technique we learned since grade school, yet most storytellers still don’t seem to have a grasp on how to properly execute this. Sarah evidently noticed that something was off about Nyles, and so did we — little hints were given everywhere, but not in a slap-to-the-face way, but more like things were going well, almost too well, for a wedding; and Nyles was smooth, almost too smooth, of a man. So things progress, and Sarah is skeptical, and so are we, but the Limbo revelation comes in the form of an arrow to the shoulder, just as Sarah and Nyles were about to have sex, and that is absolutely hilarious. I forgot to read the logline for Palm Springs before I began, and this scene certainly made me do a double-take and is one of the most absurdly creative sex interruptions I have seen.
The rest of the film took on a traditional hero’s journey story structure, which worked great, because it proved the exact point I try to make in this review, which is that you don’t need to innovate to make a good movie. Not every sci-fi film needs an Inception-level timeline and a map to lay out the logic. Even cliches are okay, genre tropes are okay, and as long as they are used right, no one is complaining. In fact, it’s commonly thought that each rom-com film needs to have its own “wow factor,” which is true to an extent, but then again, being in limbo isn’t all that much “wow” of a factor. Just like kids, we watch films, not for the story but the storytelling, which many of these VOD-releases fail to understand or execute.
