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Palm Springs
Year - 2020
Studio - Limelight Productions
Stars - Andy Samberg, Cristin Milioti, J.K. Simmons, Camila Mendes, Peter Gallagher, Meredith Hagner
Director - Max Barbakow
Writing Credits - Andy Siara, Max Barbakow
Music - Matthew Compton
Synopsis (AI Generated)
Nyles (Andy Samberg) is a laid-back, checked-out guest at a Palm Springs wedding, dating one of the bridesmaids, Misty (Meredith Hagner), though the relationship is clearly hollow. Sarah (Cristin Milioti) is the maid of honor and the bride's troubled older sister, Tala, (Camila Mendes) drinking to cope with her own anxieties and a secret she's hiding. When Nyles gives an unexpectedly heartfelt, off-the-cuff speech at the reception, Sarah is intrigued, and the two end up flirting and wandering off into the desert together.
As they're about to hook up, Nyles is suddenly shot with an arrow by a mysterious assailant, Roy (J.K. Simmons), a wedding guest. Wounded, Nyles crawls into a strange glowing cave, and a confused Sarah follows him in against his warnings. The next morning, Sarah wakes up back in her hotel room and realizes it's the morning of the wedding again — she's stuck reliving the same day in an infinite time loop, just as Nyles has been for an indeterminate but very long time (implied to be years, possibly decades).
Nyles reveals he's long since given up trying to escape or fix things, and now spends each identical day pursuing hedonistic distractions — day-drinking, crashing the wedding, blowing things up, since nothing he does carries lasting consequences (he and Sarah can be shot, blown up, or otherwise "killed" and simply wake up again at the start of the loop). He teaches Sarah the rules of their shared purgatory, and the two grow close, bonding over pranks, day trips, and dance numbers, gradually falling for each other despite the absurdity of their situation.
It's revealed that Roy, the man who shot Nyles, was originally an innocent bystander whom Nyles accidentally pulled into the loop years earlier by leading him into the cave; Roy escaped the loop at some point after Nyles taught him the "trick" to get out (self-inflicted death at a precise, sufficiently significant moment doesn't work simply — the actual method involves detonating an explosive at the cave itself), but Roy remains furious at having lost irretrievable years with his family and periodically hunts Nyles down for revenge within the loop.
Sarah, desperate to escape and consumed with guilt over a decision she made the night before the wedding — she slept with her sister's fiancé's brother, a betrayal she's been unable to face — throws herself into physics research during her endless repeated days, trying to find a scientific way out. She and Nyles have a falling-out when Sarah's recklessness (testing an escape theory by blowing herself up) unsettles Nyles, who has fallen in love with her and doesn't want to lose her — and separately, when she discovers he's been sleeping with Misty repeatedly across different loop iterations out of boredom and detachment.
Eventually Sarah devises a real plan: she can escape by detonating a large explosive at the cave the moment its glow appears, mirroring what worked for Roy. Nyles refuses to leave, having become nihilistic and afraid of a real, mortal life outside the loop. Sarah leaves without him and wakes up in the real world for the first time in a long time, but she cannot go through with fully abandoning him: she returns to Palm Springs, confesses at the wedding to sleeping with the groom's brother (clearing her conscience), and goes back to the cave to find Nyles.
In the climax, the pair are caught in an explosion together at the cave. The film ends ambiguously but hopefully: Nyles and Sarah wake up in bed together the next day, with small signs (a newspaper date, Sarah's sister no longer furious with her) suggesting they may have finally broken free of the loop together, choosing to face an uncertain future as a couple.
Trailer
Palm Springs joins the time travel sub-group of "time loop" themes, the most famous member being Groundhog Day, Other examples include 12:01, Naken, and Source Code, Edge of Tomorrow, Christmas Do-Over, and another Christmas film, A Christmas Wedding Date.