Palm Springs (2020)

Written by Kamurai on July 22, 2020

Great watch, will watch again, and can recommend, especially for fans of "time shifting" tropes.

Time shifting is where your mind goes back in time, but not your body. Essentially everything resets like a save point, except your have all this knowledge.

"Time shifting" was made popular by "Groundhog's Day" and there have been several movies that mainly consist of dying / sleeping and repeating like a video game, and this isn't THAT different with a few exceptions that make all the difference in the experience.

Andy Samberg (Brooklyn Nine-Nine) finally steps up and shows everyone that he can do a somewhat serious role, and not just a straight man. Cristin Milioti (How I Met Your Mother) does an excellent job in her lead role, with a great supporting cast, to include J.K. Simmons (Cave Johnson) leading a wonderful supporting cast, except for Tyler Hoechlin (CW Superman: "Supergirl", "Flash", etc.), who I might just not like because he was Superman, but it's supposed to be an disliked character...so....good job?

The medium of the transfer being shown is an interesting option as we saw in the "Happy Death Day" movies, but it does allow for a reasoning of how it works, can it be broken / manipulated as opposed to divine will. Most importantly, it allows for more than just one subject being affected, which is really where it gets set apart.

The trope bleeds a little when you have multiple people trapped in the loop: you have multiple people trapped in a thing: you have multiple people trapped in a prison. When multiple people are trapped in a environment together, they tend to get a little strange, and we get that sort of thing a plenty. Because we have multiple story threads to follow, we're almost seeing 3 stories all overlapping, and the movie does a great job of showing those, whether or not their in chronological order, or happening at the same time.

Whether you see it as a prison break movie, or a time loop movie, this movie has a lot of fun in it, along with deep metaphysical philosophy, so there is something for everyone.