Palm Springs

Finally available here (on Prime) for anyone who hasn’t caught it yet.

A Sundance hit sold to a major distributor for an outrageous sum sets off alarm bells these days... but thankfully Palm Springs blitzes on through those reservations with its endearing charm offensive. It tackles its time loop conceit with wit, but more importantly just the right amount of horrifying, existential dread. It’s a very funny idea that also happens to be horrifying, and the film playfully waltzes between those registers rather brilliantly. It’s darker around the edges than Groundhog Day, and having two people stuck in the loop together certainly adds another key point of difference.

I think most importantly for a rom-com, I was really rooting for Nyles and Sarah. Sure, they may be self-destructive assholes, but they’re also decent, flawed human beings who seem made for each other. Samberg and Milioti are perfect cast - likeable people with just the right amount of prickliness for the material.

Sure, there are a few script issues here and there. But it’s 90 minutes very well spent, and definitely one of the more charming, endearing and conceptually unsettling rom-coms of recent times.