Palm Springs (Video On Demand)
Starring Andy Samberg as Nyles, Cristin Milioti,J. K. Simmons , Camila Mendes , Tyler Hoechlin , Meredith Hagner
Directed by Max Barbakow
Rating: * ½
Much as I tried to make sense of this scatterbrained comedy about a disastrous wedding, all I could make out was this desperate strain in the storytelling to make the proceedings far funnier than the source material allows it to be.
Palm Springs is obviously written by brains that think they are super-cool. There is a hero Nyles who wakes up to the same morning every day of his life after he undergoes a time-loop experience at a wedding with one of the guests Sarah who is the bride’s sister. I extracted this vital information from the rubble of rabble and babble that inflicts the characters. Trust me, you don’t want to get into it.
There are cheating boyfriends, fornicating girlfriends, bewildered parents, and a potential killer named Roy played by J K Simmons of Whiplash fame, here reduced to a couple of scenes where he tries to make sense of his character and why he is where is in the first place.
Palm Springs is that one oddball wacked-out dopey comedy that comes along every year to beguile all out better judgment with gags that sag. Everyone will pretend to love the gags without knowing why they are supposed to be funny. Or why two people living the same day in a loop is supposed to be funny when the film narrating the story is a dreary as the situation in which our protagonists catch themselves.
I have to admit Andy Samberg who also directs this zonked-out screwball screw-the-ball comedy, has a certain charm to his personality. The charm of an incorrigible fibber who tells lies that he thinks is interesting. But for them to be interesting those lies have to make sense first.
I am still scratching my head.
