So I reviewed an excellent time-loop movie (on Amazon Prime Video) here a few weeks ago -- The Map of Tiny Perfect Things -- and I figured I might as well review another time-loop movie, Palm Springs, that came out almost eight months ago on Hulu, in hopes that it would be excellent, too. It was.
Like The Map, Palm Springs is the story of not one but two people (actually, three) caught and interacting in a time-loop. Like The Map and Groundhog Day, there's lots of romance and comedy underscored with some serious threads. As a minor point, I also like that quantum mechanics are explicitly brought into Palm Spring, and [spoiler ahead]
Sarah applies her understanding of QM to get her and Nyles out of the loop. The more important story is the love that the two find, as they struggle in the throes of the loop to make sense of it and their lives. Their romance, despite the comedy, actually has a realistic basis not too often seen in any kind of movie: Nyles (Adam Samberg) loves Sarah (Christin Milioti) more than she loves him, but she does love him, and loves him enough, to make their commitment to each other and their escape from the loop work.
The third spoke in this time-looped wheel is Roy, played by none other than J. K. Simmons. Roy's living a pretty good life in the loop, but he's more than happy that Sarah contacts him with her escape solution.
Back to the QM: not that this crucially matters, but I generally like science fiction more than fantasy, which made Palm Spring refreshing for me, after The Map and Groundhog Day, both of which are fantasies. So I guess the quantum mechanics is a little more than a minor point.
And I just heard that Hulu has a new time-loop movie. I have no idea if QM plays a role, but I'll definitely be seeing and reviewing it very soon. It should provide an opportunity to wonder if Infinite Regress -- this blog -- may be stuck in some time-loop of time-loops movies.
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