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Is the Comedy of the Summer

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The new Hulu movie is about feeling endlessly trapped—and finding happiness anyway.
Palm Springs is set during a never-ending day. Sorry to give away the big plot point, which comes some 15 minutes into Max Barbakow’s wonderful new comedy, but that premise feels pertinent today in a way that it didn’t when the movie premiered at Sundance six months ago. The film belongs to the growing canon of time-loop stories, which ensnare their characters in a repeating cycle from which there’s no discernible escape. Life proceeds normally enough, but its rhythms are unchanged; the monotony is comical and then unbearable. It’s not hard to view all art through the focus of the pandemic right now, but in Palm Springs, the subtext is practically text: We are all trapped.
That may sound terrifying, but what’s most impressive about the movie (out today on Hulu) is how charming and genuinely funny it is. It keeps all the beats of a salty-sweet romantic comedy without ignoring the crushing implications of having to wake up to the same morning over and over again. Where other time-loop movies (Groundhog Day, Edge of Tomorrow, Happy Death Day) were about their characters gaining some karmic sense of self-improvement, Palm Springs is about how reality can feel endless, and how being an adult involves cherishing the truth that a lot of things will never change.
The film is set in the titular California desert resort town, where Nyles (played by Andy Samberg) and Sarah (Cristin Milioti) are apathetic guests at a cloyingly cheerful wedding.

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