Andy Samberg falls into his own Groundhog Day in the sweet and inventive Palm Springs
Film Reviews Movie Review
It’s been almost 30 years since Bill Murray lived life on repeat for his sins and our enjoyment, but the Groundhog Days are still coming. It can leave a fan of that ’93 classic feeling a bit like Bill himself, forever waking to “I Got You Babe”: Wait, haven’t we done this before? Yet for every dozen inferior iterations of the Phil Connors self-improvement plan, along comes an inspired one. Palm Springs, which devises a romantic comedy of déjà vu routine for Andy Samberg (an SNL alum, just like Murray), won’t make anyone forget the wonders Harold Ramis worked with essentially the same premise. But like Edge Of Tomorrow before it, this latest variation does find ways to build on, rather than simply recycle, the pleasures of its inspiration. And it turns out to be something kind of special in its own right: a modern rom-com that’s funny and inventive and sweet and totally mainstream and a little deranged all at once.
One of the film’s cleverest choices actually comes from an early draft of Groundhog Day: The movie opens in media res, with the cursed already trapped in time’s amber. In Palm Springs, Nyles (Samberg) wakes up every morning to find that it’s still November 9, the day of the wedding he’s come to the desert of California to attend. He’s there with bridesmaid Misty (Meredith Hagner), who’s cheating on him with one of the groomsmen. Not that this, or anything else, bothers him much. Cracking a beer during the ceremony, wandering the reception in an informal short-sleeve shirt, Nyles clearly has no fucks left to give. He entertains himself mostly with his godlike omniscience, which he sometimes uses to seduce his fellow wedding guests. Early into the movie, he performs a carefully choreographed routine on the dance floor, anticipating and incorporating the impromptu moves of everyone in his radius.
This is the first hint that we’re back, conceptually speaking, in Punxsutawney. We learn the familiar nature of Nyles’ predicament at the same time as Sarah (Cristin Milioti), black-sheep older sister of the bride, who goes into the desert to fool around with Nyles and ends up getting sucked into the same astrophysical anomaly that turned his life into a skipping record. This wrinkle in the formula, making Groundhog Day a shared ordeal, allows Palm Springs to have its cake and eat it too—to explore its scenario from the perspective of someone new to the nightmare and someone who’s been going through it so long that he can’t remember anything about his life before the wedding. It’s an irresistible dynamic, pitting Samberg’s sardonic resignation against Milioti’s panic and denial and outrage. “Can we just skip this stage?” he sighs when she first steers into oncoming traffic as a futile escape attempt.
Some of Palm Springs is bawdy, and some of it is surprisingly dark. There’s a subplot about another wedding guest who Nyles accidentally pulled into the loop—a distant relative played by J.K. Simmons who periodically shows up to torture and kill the dipshit who ruined his life. He’s like Elmer Fudd to Nyles’ Bugs Bunny, except that Simmons doesn’t play the character like a cartoon, exactly; his rage and sadness are real, and he gets one rather touching monologue about the silver lining of never reaching tomorrow. Palm Springs understands that being stranded at a wedding that won’t end, with the bad speeches and sappy traditions, would be a special kind of hell—especially for someone with only a loose connection to the happy couple. (There’s a very funny running gag about no one knowing Nyles even though he knows all of them very, very well.) The script, by Lodge 49’s Andy Siara, has some fun deviating from the Groundhog mold, raising and then refuting its moral solutions.
The film works, too, as a love story—it’s charming but not too saccharine, in part because Samberg and Milioti make their characters’ cynicism feel genuine, and not like an artificial obstacle on the way to head-over-heels. (Getting eternally screwed by a glitch in time’s matrix would probably reinforce your spiritual skepticism and alienation.) You wonder, briefly, if Samberg can really play a romantic lead—as a comic actor, he still leans heavily on a grinning overgrown-kid quality. But director Max Barbakow, in his feature debut, finds some melancholy under the star’s amiable doofus routine; through the lens of his winning performance, the time warp begins to look like a garden-variety rut, the kind you fall into to close yourself off from happiness. And, blessedly, Palm Springs doesn’t turn Milioti into his manic-pixie salvation—her Sarah is as screwed-up by her bad decisions as Nyles is. If the film improves upon Groundhog Day in any respect, it’s in the chemistry between its leads: This is a true duet, putting its temporally imprisoned characters on more or less equal footing, with Milioti expressing a screwball agony—a hilarious existential desperation—Andie MacDowell certainly wasn’t afforded.
Of course, Groundhog Dog was, by design, basically The Bill Murray Show, and it operated splendidly on those terms; the romance was less crucial than what it spurred: Phil’s transformation from a signature Murray wiseacre into an enlightened human being—a karmic attitude adjustment that, miraculously, never turned preachy. Palm Springs, like just about any Groundhog offspring, doesn’t have as rock solid a backbone as that. (It doesn’t help that it gets a little hung up on the pseudoscientific logistics of the loop.) But the film puts its magical conceit to smart use, deploying it as a multi-purpose metaphor for a long-term relationship: Once they’ve become co-conspirators in time-killing mischief, Nyles and Sarah basically carve out their own little reality—it’s a fantastic expression of that feeling of being the only two people in the universe, the only ones that really get it. The flip side, of course, is that monogamy can leave you feeling stuck, living the same day over and over again, with only your significant other for company. That the film can touch on all that while remaining a breezy delight is a testament to its charms—and reason enough to go once more around with this perpetually repeated premise.
Note: This is an expanded version of the review The A.V. Club ran from the Sundance Film Festival.
157 Comments
Cristin Milioti looks wildly charming in this. Her characters never get a breakFor someone with such fun energy (she has starred in several cable Christmas movies) in this and Search Party, Meredith Hagner plays shockingly awful people
i’m a very sexy baby is one of best eps of 30 rock ever
“TGS Hates Women” is probably my favorite 30 Rock episode of all time. A lot of great sitcom episodes have a brilliant A plot and then some dumb, time-wasting B story that everyone forgets about, but this one has Tina Fey vs. Cristin Milioti in one storyline and Alec Baldwin vs. Chloë Moretz in the other. Just brilliant work all around.Every once in a while I’ll crack myself up just thinking about Milioti’s delivery of her final line: “Liz Lemon is a JUDAS to AAAAAALL womankind!”
Dammit I really need to rewatch 30 Rock. I’ve been binge-watching comedy shows with my 13-year-old (his favorite so far: the first three seasons of Community, but he’s enjoying Scrubs a lot—side note: I genuinely forgot how much they slept together on Scrubs, but boy does it stand out when watching with your kid…well, not your kid, but my kid. It would probably be even weirder and more uncomfortable with your kid).
I read your comment and it kills me that I can hear her voice in my head and I haven’t seen that episode in at least 4-5 years. I’m still laughing. May need to sign up for Hulu again and marathon 30 Rock.
Looking forward to seeing this thanks to your earlier and this write up.
So that’s NOT Alison Hannigan? Huh.This sounds worth a watch, but I’ve read so much over the years about what a psychological nightmare a Groundhog Day scenario would that it’s kind of sapped the fun out of watching Murray do his thing. A classic case of too may people overthinking a movie.
Nope! But it is someone else who was involved in that trainwreck of an ending!
This one doesn’t lay it on too thick, but one of the running jokes/themes is that the memories of doing terrible stuff in the loop would be pretty traumatizing even if (or because) they don’t “count.”
“Once they’ve become co-conspirators in time-killing mischief, Nyles and Sarah basically carve out their own little reality—it’s a fantastic expression of that feeling of being the only two people in the universe, the only ones that really get it.”The final (final) episode of Futurama played with this, although in a much darker mode. Sci-fi and fantasy can have a lot of fun literalizing stuff like this.
Very much looking forward to this–it looks very entertaining.
I saw a test screening just a few weeks before the shutdowns began. I liked it and man, the fact that Cristin Milioti isn’t one of the biggest stars in the world is an absolute shame. The twist of her spending her entirety learning a scientific way of breaking out of the loop was such a smart move.I don’t think there would have been much to change, but I’m curious if they did make any final edits between my screening and this release.
did they put a placard before the test screening you were at implying it’s an asshole move to spoil movies that aren’t even out yet?because it is.
I was thinking that about Cristin Milioti without having seen the movie or read more than half the review. She’s so talented and charismatic—I think her presence plays a major role in why people were so mad at the ending of How I Met Your Mother.
Without question. The HIMYM showrunners made a huge mistake casting her, because she somehow achieved the very rare feat of personifying a person we (and the narrator) had spent all those seasons idealizing in a way that made it feel completely natural. You saw her with Josh Radnor, and you thought, “Well… yeah, I get it. He was absolutely right.” And the longer Cristin Milioti was on the show, the more pale and limp Radnor’s chemistry with Cobie Smulders got in retrospect (which shouldn’t be a slight to Cobie, because she’s fantastic).So when we got to the finale, and suddenly The Mother was dead and Ted was at Robin’s window, suddenly the idea of the two of them ending up together felt less like a happy ending and more like a resigned cop-out.With another actress, I don’t think we’d have had the same experience. Maybe if Sarah Chalke had ended up being The Mother instead of Stella…
It also just made you really really love Tracey so when the audience is in tears as Downtown Train swells and we learn of her death…the smash cut to the kids going “Is that it?!” completely turned everyone against the kids and whatever came next.
I think you nailed why I was always caught in a weird middle ground with the HIMYM finale – in that I didn’t hate it like most people and I respected it intellectually, but I couldn’t fully bring myself to like it. Holy shit.
She was a standout in the best season of Fargo and possibly the best episode of Black Mirror, both with loaded casts.
Don’t forget the Mythic Quest bottle episode: Dark Quiet Death.
I’m hoping there’s an increasing momentum to her acting career where great performances keep building off each other.
She’s also in one of my favorite 30 Rock episodes, “TGS Hate Women”. I aslo had the luck to see her on Broadway in “Once” – on top of everything, she can sing!
Was going to say, she’s done that ‘waking up in a space-time continuum’ thing pretty well before.
For some reason my favorite thing in the movie was Cristin Milioti coming into Samberg’s room every day to wake him up & order him to join her for whatever she feels like doing that day, with no regard for how much this outrages Meredith Hagner (his character’s cheating gf)
Edge of Tomorrow also had a person newly stuck in a loop meeting a person who’d already experienced it.
This is true, didn’t think of that.
Yes, but in EoT Rita was no longer looping each day at the same time Cage was; Samberg and Milioti (and Simmons) are looping at the same time.
i think the June Squibb character was also looping.
As did Russian Doll…well, that had two people entering the loop at the same time and finding each other.
In Russian Doll, the two leads were intrinsically linked; when one would die, the other would suffer a similar fate; while this movie isn’t explicit about it, the loops starts again for everyone when they fall asleep- so if someone falls asleep (or dies) prematurely, their leap starts sooner than others… This is only delved into at a key scene late in the movie, but one could see it being a serious determent when anyone is forced to watch someone they love die and then have to live the rest of the day until they can meet again.
I’m just realizing that I could consume a million shows/movies/books about time loops and never get bored of them. There’s just so many different possibilities. I don’t really think any of these four examples are all that similar to each other anyway (GH Day, this movie, Russian Doll, EoT).
It’s like being mad Disney Princess movies are too similar. Or action movies featuring bloated white guys who used to be mega famous in the 90s. You either like those basic premises or you don’t.
I, too, am a complete sucker for the Time Loop genre. I’m sure there are terrible ones out there, but everything I can think of at the top of my head has (at the very least) been entertaining, and some of them–like this movie and EoT are borderline great.
Just want to put in a plug for Edge of Tomorrow, which rewards repeat viewings in a way that many 2010s action films (obvious exception for Fury Road) do not.
lemme guess: the twist at the end is… Kelsey Grammar is the captain, right?
Ha. Interesting thing about that TNG episode: although Kelsey Grammer identifies himself as Captain Morgan Bateson, he’s actually Dr. Frasier Crane, who went through a freak wormhole into the future and enlisted in Starfleet. But he didn’t go far forward enough, so he created that time anomaly to go to TNG times. Why? Because Lillith was that alien that fucked Riker when he was undercover on that religious planet. Then they went back in time together back to Cheers.Think about it. TNG crossed over with X-Men in the comic book Second Contact. X-Men crossed over with Superman in the 90’s Marvel/DC crossover event. Superman was in those American Express commercials with Jerry Seinfeld (also in the 90’s). This was the Jerry from the show, and not the real life comedian, because Kramer was subletting his apartment from Paul Reiser on Mad About You. Ursula the Waitress on that show was Phoebe from Friends’s sister. Chandler met Annie from Caroline in the City in a video store, and Niles and Daphne read the Caroline in the City comic strip. Boom. Same universe.And you’ll remember in the TNG 7th season episode Genesis, they discovered a virus (Barclay’s protomorphosis syndrome) that made people de-evolve (DEVO was right!). Kelsey Grammer and Patrick Stewart starred in an adaptation of Animal Farm in which they played the pigs. They’re also in X-Men 3 together as mutants. And they both appear on the Simpsons. And who appears in Frasier season 11 episode 8? Patrick Stewart. Some shit’s going down with those two. The facts are all there. Just connect the dots, sheeple!
I’d like to subscribe to your newsletter
Newsletters are for conspiracy theorists and fascists! I only write manifestos!
To the barricades!
We are definitely through the looking glass here people
It’s got nothing to do with the Mirror Universe!
Because why would reverse vampires, serving in their supervisory roles, need mirrors?
Patton would be proud! Or wait…his character in Parks and Rec…which had a crossover with DAMMIT now I’m doing it!
Patton won’t respond to my DMs.
I’m sure it’s only because he has worthwhile things to do 😛
We should check his penis for a tattoo to find out if he’s really the captain.
Fun fact: that episode came out right before Groundhog Day began filming. And honestly, Palm Springs reminded me way more of that TNG plot than it did Groundhog Day, for a variety of reasons. (Mostly that more than one person can realize what’s happening, along with a “scientific” method to try and escape.)
oh wow – you’re right! I assumed it came out after! Or perhaps it did, and went back in time, and th- sorry, I’m feeling a bit dizzy…
“It doesn’t help that it gets a little hung up on the pseudoscientific logistics of the loop.”Yay, I’m sold! I know it’s not fashionable in critic circles for sci-fi/fantasy movies to “explain how everything works”, but I love that shit. Especially when time travel is involved. Even if it’s just meaningless technobabble.
Don’t get too excited. I gather the review writer doesn’t want ANY “pseudoscientific logistics” in this movie. That’s the only way this criticism makes sense. You get one quick montage of Sarah learning quantum physics, a couple of scenes with an experimental goat, and one quickly explained diagram that says “science babble science babble this might be a way out.” It’s a total handwave. If you like this suff, it’ll leave you wanting much more. If you don’t like it, it’s over before you can finish rolling your eyes.
I bought every word of Avengers: Endgame no problemo, so this wasn’t an issue for me either haha.
cool beans?
NEGATIVE cool beans. Sell the movie to a service in Canada, please (not any of them that I don’t already have, though)
This looks like fun. In my opinion, by far the best “living the same day over and over” movie is a relatively unknown example, Source Code (2011). Jake Gyllenhaal experiences the last 8 minutes of someone else’s life over and over again while trying to identify a bomber on a Chicago commuter train.It’s a deceptively simple premise with a relatively small cast, but executed to perfection, and the ending is both bittersweet and mind-bending. Edge of Tomorrow is good, but I think Source Code might be better.
Source Code is excellent if you press stop before the last five minutes of the movie. It has a perfect ending, that then goes ahead and undoes everything good about it. I love you Duncan Jones, but know when to end your movie.
The last 5 minutes might actually be my favorite part. It would have been easy to just end it on the train full of frozen people and let the audience decide what happens, but the way I see it, the entire movie has been full of clues to indicate that the “entering a dead person’s memory” explanation is just a cover story, and that the “source code” is actually a portal to alternate timelines. I think Goodwin knew this the entire time, and Colter Stephens had it 90% figured out by the time he asked Goodwin to send him back in and switch him off.The ending with Christina also brings up some interesting darker implications, since they’ve basically “killed” multiple alternate versions of Sean Fentress by overwriting his mind with that of Stephens. I guess it doesn’t matter for the versions of Sean who were going to die anyway, but what about the one that survived? Christina still thinks the man she’s talking to is her friend Sean. It’s only a happy ending if you don’t think about it too hard. I love that.
Yeah, I enjoyed the ending for that final twist of implications of what the source code has really been doing, and I’ve also been so conditioned by movie narratives that the final reveal of Gyllenhaal’s character was a genuine shock to me (I kept expecting a cliche ending of him getting someone to rescue him from the machine, so when someone actually goes to the machine and we see him I was floored).
Also, it has a lovely Scott Bakula cameo, which is nice.
I’ll give you that Source Code is very good, but EoT is borderline great. I mean, for being batshit crazy Tom Cruise is reliable as all hell, and Emily Blunt was perfect (and a bit of a revelation that is further revealed in Quiet Place).
“Cracking a beer during the ceremony, wandering the reception in an informal short-sleeve shirt, Nyles clearly has no fucks left to give.”It took me a full decade of friends’ weddings to figure this out. At least 15-20 weddings, and when one of my best friends, roomate, etc, finally got married in 2009, in NYC, and I knew there was only going to be maybe three people there that I knew, I was literally like, Eh, Fuck It. Open bar? I’m in, ‘cause Rogue is about to get blackout drunk and not give a shit.
Which came first? Groundhog Day or that episode of STTNG?
The TNG episode.
The 30 minute short 12:01pm with Kurtwood Smith.
I haven’t seen it in years since it came out but I do remember enjoying Andy Samberg as a romantic lead in Celeste And Jesse Forever. Very happy to see him as another rom-com lead in this, definitely looking forward to it!
Underrated film.
absolutely! been wanting to rewatch lately.
Just saw and really enjoyed. Andy and Cristin have really great chemistry—as do Andy and J.K. Simmons. However, I grew up next door to Irvine, so “finding my own Irvine” actually doesn’t sound that appealing.
My partner is from Lake Forest, she watched it for the first time tonight and said, in increasingly louder tones every time Irvine was repeated in that scene: “Oh my God!”
The review, the pseudoscientific stuff, and JK Simmons is tempting me to spring for Hulu..
Hulu is actually a really good service, though I really hate their layout. The ‘no ads’ version is fantastic for watching TV Shows and realizing just how much time commercials really take…20 minutes for a sitcom feels weird, but somehow just right.
Yes, it is amazing how much time is consumed by ads. Most of my TV watching is via DVR so I can zap the damned things..
Having seen it, what exactly was especially “inventive” about the nth remake of Groundhog Day? I can’t think of a twist on the original that another knockoff hasn’t already done.
“. . . the nth remake of Groundhog Day. . .”Really? Name ‘em!
To begin with:
https://www.standard.co.uk/go/london/film/10-films-that-ripped-off-groundhog-day-a3755821.htmlSome of those films seem to have borrowed from it more than others, but needless to say, we’ve seen a lot of versions of this.
3 of those are tv-movies, one was released only a few months after Groundhog Day (so it can’t be a rip-off/”remake”) and one is about amnesia (50 First Dates) so that list is terrible. Thanks?
Okay, you win. It’s a very original concept because some of them were TV movies.
Fair enough. Thanks!
It’s funny and hangs together well as a movie. I don’t know if that’s incentive, but it’s plenty for a high concept romantic comedy. The real difference is that Groundhog Day is a religious fable about a morally compromised person receiving an infinite number of attempts to improve himself, until finally he achieves transcendence and moves on to the next stage of existence. This movie is the exact opposite. The universe is inexplicable, and the characters are guided by their intelligence, their moral centers, and their need for companionship, without any hope of cosmic intervention. It’s an atheistic fable about humans’ innate decency and creativity.
Damn, really REALLY nicely explained. I really connected with this movie. You probably summed up a good part of why. You’d think that’d make it seem nihilistic, but it’s really not. It’s all the positive parts of “being good without god” without being smug or overt about it. Even at the end, it flips the expectation of the stern woman/pleading for forgiveness guy when she just kind of . . . accepts his apology speech completely and fully. It’s a super kind and humanistic story and flawed people giving up, but then finding reasons to keep trying.
*starts bawling*
My wife turned me around on it. Right when we finished the movie I felt like it stripped away Groundhog Day’s redemption theme and replaced it with nothing. She thought the idea of people doing their best in a chaotic, indifferent universe was more thematically resonant. Also, it’s a lot funnier than Groundhog Day.
Also, it’s a lot funnier than Groundhog Day. Please go. Leave your things here, we will mail them to you.
Sometime around the 2010 comedies weaponized raunchiness in a way that speaks directly to my lizard-brain. Groundhog Day is a funny movie, but I enjoy this one’s scatterbrained nonsense more.
This was pretty fun. Milioti was great, Samberg was more tolerable than anything else I’ve seen him in, and JK Simmons stole the show, as he is wont to do.
My biggest complaint with this film is it needed more J.K. Simmons, but that’s my biggest complaint with every film.
This. Counterpart getting cancelled broke me.
If your paying close attention the movie implies at least one other wedding guest is caught in the time loop.
Without spoiling anything, I love that their bit is just being into toasts.
I thought so too! I have a sneaking suspicion someone else, a fifth person at the reception, is in the loop too.
Ooh do tell, I only spotted four.
ya same who’s the 5th??
The dinosaur.
There’s something about the bartender that makes me think she’s in the loop too. Her attitude over the different receptions seems to change just enough to make it possible. I could be looking for something that isn’t there, but she’s the fifth. I think.
I wondered about the bartender too. Very slight things, but I think they’re there.
Agreed!
I dunno about that. If you’ve ever met someone who regularly bartends at weddings, etc., they tend to have the same type of blasé attitude that she has without being stuck in a time loop (maybe because going to all those weddings, etc., feel like a hellish time loop).
Who???
yes! but I almost thought she was an architect of it in a way…
Yeah I finally realized that at the end with the final interaction of said character–who had possibly been there the longest of them all.
Who else?
Who else? I need to re-watch
Wait who else was there?
Spoilers, obviously. Late to the conversation but are the dinosaurs also stuck in a time loop – forever existing in that part of the desert for that day? Maybe there was another rift/cave somewhere on that faultline they walked/fell into millions of years ago.
Just saw this and I like the little nod to Joe Versus the Volcano at the end.
Cristin Milioti is so fucking talented. I’m glad she’s getting a steady stream of work. I really liked this movie. It’s maybe Samberg’s best work. Just a solid, fun romcom—which is sorely needed these days.
Dare I say, the romance felt more real than in rom-coms that don’t have one of those infinite time loop things you may have heard about?
THAT I MAY HAVE HEARD ABOUT? I really liked this movie. It helped that I fell in love with Cristin Milioti while watching it (it is the first thing I have seen her in), so that made Andy Samberg’s character pretty relatable
“You wonder, briefly, if Samberg can really play a romantic lead”I mean, I already knew this from Brooklyn 99. Yes, he and Melissa Fumero are a hoot together — and I’m definitely not out of hoots to give with those two — but their quieter and romantic moments are absolutely wonderful, including one of the best TV proposals ever.
The montage of the two of them clowning was funny enough to justify the movie by itself, particularly a gag involving a tattoo that had me laughing harder than I have at a movie in a while.It ain’t citizen kane folks, but it’s perfect Covid viewing, and has several minor touches that really flesh it out, all of the minor background characters have SOMETHING that sets them apart (“You have a dog?” and the very small details about the bartender that add up to a very strange person), I appreciated them solving with science…but the ultimate solution was pretty unnecessary to all of that build up (plus SPOILER tiny plot hole: she said the goat disappeared from the time loop after she blew it up…but Samberg doesn’t disappear from the time loop)
Yeah that annoyed me too- but ultimately they couldn’t have had the goat just not know them, because how do you even portray that? The other option is that Simmons shows up to the wedding and Nyles… just doesn’t exist anymore? It wouldn’t work either way… So just go with it.
I was immediately wanting them to somehow convey that the goat didn’t know her anymore. Another montage of them frolicing, feeding grass, going to casinos, waking up in a crackhouse, kind of like Wet Hot American Summer, and then, after the kaboom, she offers the goat her favorite James Joyce trade paperback to eat and the goat doesn’t have any idea what she’s doing. I’d cry like at the beginning of “Up.”I also think they missed the chance to show how Samberg’s character found the cave to begin with…although it’s implied that he just went for a walk after seeing his gf cheat and saw a glowy cave, and presumably wanted more closure than the finale of LOST.
That montage had me in tears. Until that moment I’d have sworn I could go my whole life without seeing another montage and been just fine, too.
She was lying about the goat to get him to agree to the experiment.
I like that interpretation but I’m not sure it’s supportedAlthough i like the alternate ending where they blew up at the same time they were sucked into the glowy cave and so were merged into one pulsating gaseous unit of organic muck that is reborn eternally in agony, how do you like marriage now, andy? I HAVE NO MOUTH AND I MUST SMIRK
I went back and checked to make sure I wasn’t imagining this dialogue. When they’re walking into the cave they have this exchange…
Nyles – So was the whole “goat disappearing thing” for real or was that bullshit? Sarah – It’s too late, you’ve already committed.
Combine this with the fact that Nyles didn’t disappear from the day after escaping the loop. I’m not saying my interpretation is right, but it’s well-supported.
ah…it was a clever movie. So the Goat came back the very next day?
. . . We thought it was a goner . . .
it just couldn’t stay away?
Having watched it again, I’ll offer up a new theory about the goat- so during the movie, we never actually see the goat go into the cave… It’s present when the cave opens at the beginning of the movie, and we naturally assume it was also in the loop when Sarah uses it as a test subject, but at no time do we see it go in by itself… So what if the reason it ceased to exist was because Sarah put it through the loop for the very first time? For everyone trapped in the loop, when they leave the original version of them from that version of the multiverse remains… But if an original version leaves, nothing of them remains?
I’m not following, it seemed to me like she took the goat into the loop and then later blew it up…like they mainly indicated. Other beings die and are reset, JK Simmons and Milioti go through the look for the first time and then are in the loop with Samberg, they don’t disappear. Oh wait. I might see…I thought it indicated she put the goat into the tunnel first.
Pretty good, but there was definitely a missed opportunity for this almost obligatory exchange somewhere near the end:Nyles: You’re my Irvine.Sarah: What?Nyles: Never mind. Forget it.
Written as a series of dreams rather than actually reliving the day, “The Defense of Duffer’s Drift” (about a smaller-scale battle in the Boer War) was published in 1904 and precedes Groundhog Day. I read it while in officer training in the Army and loved it – it follows the same pattern of learning from each iteration. If you’re into military strategy, it’s a cool read. And if you’re not, I imagine it’s probably a decent read.
Really fun movie. I’m curious why Samberg couldn’t have explained the situation by saying, “It’s a Groundhog Day scenario” instead of placing it in a universe where an extremely popular move and expression didn’t exist.
I was curious about that choice too, especially when Millotti then go on to apply that very moral solution to try to solve the loop.
Because in the real world there are trademarks on popular movie properties like Groundhogs Day, and it’s easier to just pretend they don’t exist then pay massive royalties for the ability to include a brief and unnecessary reference.
That’s not how trademarks work.
That’s not how trademarks work. Fair use. They could say groundhogs day
It’s always irritating to me when people don’t use ‘Groundhog Day’ as an explanation immediately. The ones that springs to mind that does is Happy Death Day. Our heroine, naturally, doesn’t get the reference.As you say, it implies a world where the film doesn’t exist. The other big one for me is the TV series Sherlock. As, presumably, none of the Arthur Conan Doyle stories exist in this reality, that means pop culture must have been changed immeasurably. There’s no Sherlock Homes novels, short stories, films, TV series, parodies, spoofs, pastiches, knock-offs, tourist traps etc etc. The world would be noticeably different, I think.
Happy Death Day was so much better than I ever expected it to be–and yes, full credit for actually saying Groundhog Day instead of trying to pretend that movie isn’t a pop culture touchstone.
same, and the sequel goes in a bananas direction rather than just remixing the first movie.
Legends of Tomorrow used “Groundhog Day” as a shortcut to explain what was going on in their time loop episode. It was the first thing Nate told Zari (who’d never seen or heard of the movie) to tell him each time she runs into him after the restart.
Isn’t that sort of like watching Cold Mountain or O Brother, Where Art Thou? and wondering why the characters aren’t explicitly noting similarities to The Odyssey? Andy Samberg is in this too, so presumably there’s no Saturday Night Live either. Any film reality is inherently going to be somewhat different than our own reality. If I’m suspending disbelief at the entire premise, I can accept that the movie either doesn’t exist or that the “one of those time loops” line was enough to suffice.
You might as well say that about Marvel films, DC films, or any popular soap opera. I don’t know what the US equivalent would be, but in Britain a lot of people each evening sit down to watch either Eastenders or Coronation Street, but no-one in either show ever watches or even mentions the other.
It’s one of those things you have to do in order to not make it too easy for the characters, I think. Kind of like how nobody in a zombie movie has ever seen a zombie movie before.
Given the “it’s one of those time loops you might have heard about” interaction, I kinda get the impression that at some point the script did have a direct reference and it got edited out.
I call the “Hedgehog Day” phenomenon
Personally I think they’re in a no-win situation. If you reference the originator, it’s a momentary laugh of recognition that immediately curdles (at least for me) into irritation at the laziness of using that lampshading as a joke. A lot of disposable comedies with borrowed premises make this kind of joke (pretty sure Hot Tub Time Machine directly references Back to the Future, for instance), and it stopped being cute to me a long time ago. But if they don’t reference it at all and pretend like the idea is brand new, the viewer is annoyed the other way and accuses the movie of being a shameless ripoff.I think they’re going here for “knowing but not winking homage,” which is the best (maybe) of several not-great options.
If anything, I wished the homage was slightly LESS knowing. There are parts of the movie that really insist the viewer know Groundhog Day to understand this successor’s kind of strange pacing (for instance, the “fast-forwarding” of the suicide section of the plot). They worked overtime to not appear too indebted, but some story beats of this premise are so automatic that they could have indulged them a bit more. Happy Death Day did that, proceeding in large part as if Groundhog Day hadn’t done it first, and in some ways it was the superior choice.
All that said, I did like this movie.
They did a great take on this in an episode of Legends of Tomorrow. The one who was stuck in the time loop explained what was happening to someone, and they talked about what to do about it, then when they knew the reset was coming, he said, “Next time it resets, just come up to me and say ‘Groundhog Day’ and I’ll be up to speed immediately.”
Only she was from the future and had never seen nor heard of the movie, so after the reset she confidently walked up to him and said, “Hedgehog Day.”
I just watched this because I stan Andy Samberg. Gah, it’s really good for what it is. Much more nuanced than it first appears to me. Lots of trope busting, excellent writing, great casting, solid jokes, and very well plotted and paced. The internal logic is sound and it drops its information bits right at the needed places. The ending is satisfying and Samberg and Milioti have EXCELLENT chemistry. The soundtrack also vibes well.
But I really want to specifically point out how FUCKING fantastic Samberg is here. I don’t know if it’s the director or him maturing as an actor or what, but I think this is the best I’ve ever seen him. His face is so expressive, a huge range of emoting being showcased here. His goofy energy is reigned in and released in just the appropriately measured amounts. His physical comedy seems more focused and controlled as well. But really, his comedy is always on point. It’s his dramatic work here that seems so much more natural and believable. He sells the weariness so well. I BELIEVED his sighs were the sighs of a man (not a young bro anymore, but an actual MAN) who had actually seen some shit.
I was impressed, as someone who has followed his whole career for reasons even I don’t understand. Lol.
I also just felt the way they treated Milioti’s character was extremely dignified and respectful for a female character in a rom-com. She’s a fuck-up, but it’s not her WHOLE personality. She also gets to be funny and daring and sexual (but not crass for the sake of crass). She also saves the day through being smart (Science!! TESTED science!!!! Actual RESEARCH!! No MacGuffins!!!!!), but that doesn’t redeem her within her arc. She’s allowed to remain flawed, just like him.
Just good characterizations all around and the parts not dealt with were, I thought, satisfactorily explained. Also, casual explorations of sexuality treated casually by characters are always welcome in my book. I give it an A-. (Sense of place and ironically, time, could have been defined better. Would have liked to see more J.K. Simmons. Less driving shots. Opening scene shocking for sake of being shocking and didn’t really match tone of the rest of movie. Nit picky stuff.)
I just watched this over the weekend and like it quite a bit. They do a good job of not rehashing Groundhog Day, but building on it. Even Edge of Tomorrow didn’t have more than one person stuck in the loop. Admittedly, I’ve always been a fan of Samberg, and Christina Milioti is quickly becoming a favorite as well.
Gonna throw some notes up here having watched it. So SPOILERS obviously:First, enjoyed it. A lot. I went in with certain expectations and it actually managed to surprise me with where it went.Mainly I really liked how Nyles was trying to be a good person throughout. Sarah getting trapped in the loop was never what he wanted, and once she was he really really wanted to be careful with how he moved forward.It was a bummer he lied to her about never having slept with her before she joined him, but at the same time he didn’t force anything and it was ultimately her choice to get physical. Also, Roy having gotten trapped in the loop with him early on is a nice touch. We basically get a montage of Nyles in his more destructive days that would/could have been a movie in itself.So I liked that dynamic. I also liked that it gave a reason for why he went in to the cave that first night with Sarah. He was injured, the pain was real, and he didn’t want to get stuck somewhere unable to reset the day until he bled out.The reveal about Sarah being with the groom also was well done. Nyles had already grown numb to waking up next to his girlfriend knowing she was cheating, but Sarah woke up every morning reminded of what she did to her sister. That would be brutal.I also like that Roy doesn’t get left behind. A lesser movie would have completely ignored that part of it after ending. It was also kinda cool to get a glimpse of Nyles dressed in his suit and tie nicely groomed for the wedding. So yeah, at one point he was just a normal guy before he got stuck.So kudos to this movie. And both stars. Especially Samberg, who played Nyles much straighter than I would have expected given his time on Brooklyn. Also, Milloti needs work. She was great and was done dirty by HIMYM.
I like that his view changed on sleeping with her once she was stuck with him–and it had consequences that however many times he did before obviously didn’t. I also like to think his talking about how the stuff you do does start to matter in your head was also pertaining to sleeping with people (along with murder, etc).
-and it had consequences that however many times he did before obviously didn’t.Right?!Like, he was doing the Groundhog Day’s style “perfect run” in order to sleep with her but he genuinely didn’t want anyone else to get stuck with him (and that was driven off guilt of the last time it happened…which was entirely his fault).Like, Sarah should have assumed he slept with her the way he answered his questions about it.Also, the way he told her about it…you could tell that it was weighing on him in retrospect. He spent all that time with her until she was comfortable enough to want to, but in reality the first time it was because she was drunk and he just bailed her out.He realized how he took advantage of her with his knowledge and was trying really really hard not to fall in to that trap again. Because he probably knew enough about her to do it again at any point leading up to the night when they finally did.
It was a bummer he lied to her about never having slept with her before she joined him, but at the same time he didn’t force anything and it was ultimately her choice to get physical.I thought this was a really well-constructed scene, because Nyles makes this revelation immediately after reminding Sarah that pain is real and sadism remains wrong. And then he says something awful in the cruelest way he can think of.
The thing he said was simultaneously harsh, but he also doesn’t realize just how hard it hit because at the time he didn’t know what had caused her to break like that.She had just gotten physical with him after a “long” relationship across loops. But every morning she still woke up next to her future brother-in-law on his wedding day.So him pointing out just how easy it actually was for him to sleep with her hits at a time when she’s just hit her breaking point. No amount of loops can undo what she did to her sister, and she’s reminded of it every morning even as she’s now in this budding relationship with him.
This might be just a personal reaction, but “I could manipulate you into sex whenever I wanted” carries a slut-shaming implication that hits me hard, regardless of Sarah’s personal history with her sister and brother-in-law. I don’t mean this as a criticism! It just raises interesting questions about consent in time loop cinema that’d never occurred to me before.
Oh I absolutely saw the shaming in what he said. “I slept with you thousands of times and all I had to do was bail you out of the speech.”Which, thinking about it, is especially harsh when you consider that’s exactly how he began the process of hooking up with her at the beginning of the movie.The first time they might from her point of view was in the midst of something he’s done already. It very well could have just been him playing up the script until Roy caught up.
“I also like that Roy doesn’t get left behind.”But wait… wait. Roy does get left behind, right? Isn’t he still stuck in the time loop? Didn’t he have to get blown out with them to get out ? I guess I lack knowledge in time loops, damnit. My view of the ending is that he is left behind and that’s very sad.
Sarah is shown talking to someone on the phone during her montage researching the plan.In a mid-credits scene, it’s revealed she was calling Roy, who shows up to the wedding and gets Nyles’ attention. He turns around and has no idea who Roy is or what he’s talking about, which Roy realizes means the plan worked.
Yes, I’m clear on all of that. Roy knows the plan worked. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that he got out, does it? If he wasn’t in the cave with them. When you said “I also like that Roy doesn’t get left behind”, I took it to mean that he also got out. Am I overthinking this?
The idea is that Sarah relayed the instructions to him, and he has evidence it worked so he’ll do it too.We don’t need to see him actually escaping because the film ends on his joyous reaction to the knowledge he too can escape.
But the cave is gone ! Well, okay, I’ll stop and take that joyous ending. He’s gonna have to work hard but he can cling to the idea that he can maybe see his kids grow up as opposed to watching little Joey watering dog shit over and over again :-)All this to say that I liked this movie very much. Thanks for humoring me.
I don’t think the cave is “gone” because Sarah performed the experiment with the goat, found success, and then did it again with her and Nyles.
You’re right. It makes sense. Hooray for Roy !
[Many months later…]But the goat test not only doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t even turn out to work “right”. The goat’s not in the loop like our heroes, so you wouldn’t expect it to have the same effect…and, the goat disappears from the day altogether after being blown up, but Samberg just lives his normal day AND apparently appears the next day, going forward with his full memories of everything. So what happens to the guy we see with Roy in the mid-credits scene?Also, maybe it’s supposed to be significant, but it’s pretty weird that what they choose to do after breaking out of a years-or-decades-long time prison is….float in the same pool they’ve been floating in all the time.
I watched this last night with my wife and really enjoyed it. It’s a very fun and breezy 90 minutes that manages to make some heartfelt points about depression and relationships without stopping the plot in its tracks to make its more serious points (which I find that too many modern comedies *cough*thanks Judd Appatow*cough* do).
Mostly this movie just made me really happy. What a damn fine thing that is.
I really loved this movie. It’s absolutely a shame we have to grind through so many stinkers to find a really special comedy that lingers without going overboard stupid.
First thought after reading this review: it sounds like Passengers, but if they got the power dynamic right between the couple.
Assuming that I read it correctly and the girl ends up in this purgatorial scenario by accident, and not because the boy got bored and decided he deserved a cute companion.
Why is this review suddenly on the front page again almost two years later?
No one knows, but it’s PROVOCATIVE