Palm Springs and the Importance of Giving a Shit
Of course my first real piece for the newsletter is about Andy Samberg.
Modern life has made it incredibly easy for people to fall into a largely mindless routine. Even before we all stayed at home for four months, monotony could swiftly become the main factor in life. It’s simple to visualize: go to work listening to the same podcasts and albums, do the same tasks at work day in and day out, do the same workouts after you’re done, cook the same meals, watch the same shows, do everything mostly the same. The small details might change, but the essence of each day never does. From here, it’s not long before it’s hard to give a shit about anything. Everything becomes dull, and caring about the world, other people, or even yourself becomes too much effort.
Palm Springs, the new movie produced by The Lonely Island (Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone) and directed by Max Barbakow from a script by Andy Siara, is a lot of things. Let’s go over the basics. It’s a love story between leads Nyles (Andy Samberg) and Sarah (Cristin Milioti) which happens to take place in a time loop they’re both trapped in, reliving the day of Sarah’s sister’s wedding over and over. It’s a surprisingly sturdy science fiction film with clear, consistent rules about its main concept. And it’s an ode to how we need to give a shit in positive ways to make life worth it. It illustrates this point through its three main characters: Nyles, Sarah, and Roy (J. K. Simmons).
Before we go further, a note. Everything above this point is information you’re going to get from the trailer. Starting now I’m going to go into pretty heavy spoiler territory. Palm Springs is a movie where the first viewing is definitely best experienced knowing as little else as possible. If you haven’t seen it, come back in 90 minutes once you have.
I want to examine the roles Nyles and Roy play in this before moving on to Sarah, who is the emotional core of the movie who ties all of it together.
Nyles
When viewers meet Nyles, he does not give a shit about anything. A specific number is never given for how many cycles of the same day he has lived through, but from the way he talks about it the number is presumably in the thousands, if not higher. Trapped in this routine, nothing can motivate him anymore. He has done everything he can think to do, slept with everyone he possibly can (the scene recounting the cycle he tried to cut in on the first dance is brilliant), and pulled all the pranks he possibly can. He is joyless, going through the motions endlessly because what else is there to do? This works so well because Andy Samberg has always been a quietly great serious actor and because it is so relatable to the real world. While none of us are trapped in a time loop, Nyles represents the apathetic surrender to the mundane in everyday life so many people fall into.
Roy
While Nyles is the result of not giving a shit turning into apathy, Roy is what happens when the listlessness turns into rage. After being trapped in the loop by Nyles, Roy consumes himself with a hunt for vengeance and proceeds to kill Nyles in many creative ways. A lot of these moments are played for laughs because Palm Springs is a rom-com, but it’s clear that this is sad. Anger is a natural emotion and one that can be useful, but only when processed and directed into productive means. As many times as Roy kills Nyles, Nyles is always alive for the next cycle and Roy is still trapped just the same. It’s only when Roy is the victim of the same brand of impotent anger he has been consumed by that he realizes this might not be the way. Again, the casting here is spot on, with Simmons’s blend of old man grumpiness and emotionally depth shining.
Sarah
Sarah is the heart of Palm Springs. Without Cristin Milioti bringing her absolute A-game to the movie, it would all fall apart. Sarah has had life slowly crush her into not giving a shit. Seeing her come back to life over the course of countless cycles with Nyles is heartwarming, but Milioti gives us glimpses even early on of the sadness that lives inside her. While humorously illustrated by a candy bar, the conversation she has with Nyles about midway through the film about whether the past matters or not is the crux of the movie. Nyles, apathetic as he is, argues that the past doesn’t matter because in this mundane reality nothing in it has any consequence to himself.
But Sarah knows that’s not true. Her apathy led her to wake up next to her sister’s fiancé on the day of their wedding, and she has to live with that regret every single day, quite literally. Not giving a shit doesn’t just dull our own lives, it has consequences on the people around us. And as Sarah and Nyles grapple with at different points in the film, even if those consequences fade for those around us, we always have to live with them. Thus, it is important for us to take an active responsibility in our own lives to care about ourselves and the world around us. We will still make mistakes and get hurt, but it will ultimately lead to a much more satisfying existence. This realization in Sarah leads to the resolution of the movie, prompting her to finally find a way out of the cycle and sparking the change in both Roy and Nyles, leading the former to cherish the things he does have and the latter to finally shake out of his funk and become an active participant in his own life.
I did not expect to be deeply moved by a sci-fi rom-com with Andy Samberg’s bare ass in it when I sat down to watch Palm Springs. But all of the people involved imbued the movie with such heart and thought that elevates it to something special. It’s funny, but it’s also earnest in urging the viewer to care, about themselves and the world around them. It’s something that will always be necessary, no matter how many cycles we go through.
All photos courtesy of Hulu/Neon