Romantic comedies, the best of the genre, are the perfect comfort food. You get two conventionally attractive people with chemistry going through the trials and tribulations of falling in love. They have problems, but they’re not the gritty problems of the real world. Harry and Sally don’t seem to worry about their jobs; they’re too busy stressing whether or not men and women can be just friends. In Notting Hill, William worries about chasing the advances of a movie star, not the financial responsibility of owning an independent bookstore located in an affluent neighborhood in London. And even though Sleepless in Seattle’s Sam is a widowed father, he has a touching relationship with his son, a steady architect job, and the love of women nationwide.
But sometimes, there are rom-coms where the protagonists are more rough around the edges; they’re assholes, they’re cheaters, they’re narcissists. The viewer is not only hoping the protagonists end up together, they’re hoping the main characters get their own shit together, too. The latest offering in lovable assholes comes from the sci-fi-rom-com hybrid Palm Springs.
After falling into a mysterious cave, Nyles (Andy Samberg) and Sarah (Cristin Milioti) become doomed to repeat the wedding day of Sarah’s sister Tala and her husband Abe over and over again. Nyles, having been trapped in the time loop for ages now, has committed to living a hedonistic existence. He drinks excessively, he lounges around the pool, he sleeps with anyone who will give him the time of day (and even tries with the bride). Then there’s Sarah, the black sheep of the family who’s viewed as “a liability who fucks around and drinks too much.” These two are the outcasts of an Instagram-worthy wedding, so naturally they become drawn to each other and become inseparable once Sarah is stuck in the time loop as well.
Nyles, in spite of the goofy charisma Samberg imbues him with, cares for little outside of himself. And it’s hard to blame him, considering the futility of his circumstances. Getting cheated on is already the kind of event that shatters a person and closes them off emotionally. But to get cheated on endlessly, by a vapid girlfriend no less, is its own layer of hell.
When Sarah enters the time loop, Nyles is no longer alone in his meaningless existence. He even seems overjoyed at having a companion, waking up smiling every morning at the thought of spending time with her. Yet, Nyles remains guarded, unwilling to deepen their relationship beyond their surface-level shenanigans. Sarah opens up to Nyles about her failed marriage but he fails to comment on her story and can’t bring himself to share anything about his personal life. He has already nestled into the ease of their relationship, so bringing in personal traumas would only complicate things, and Nyles has no interest in that. If he can’t move forward in time, why should he move forward emotionally?
There’s a hopelessness in Nyles from having lived in the time loop for so long, unable to create new memories, new relationships, new meaning of any kind, that warms him to the audience in spite of his emotional immaturity. Even outside of a time loop, humans have the inherent fear of committing too much feeling to something when there’s the possibility of being hurt. It’s why modern dating often becomes a game of chicken, where people hover and hesitate over being the first to admit they’ve caught feelings. It’s why as much as Nyles likes Sarah, he can’t bring himself to “know the whole package” behind her.
Then there’s Sarah, who suffers from her own kind of hopelessness. She’s the divorced older sister who’s tainting her little sister’s picture-perfect day. She has to battle her family’s embarrassment of her. How do you begin to crawl out of the hole that your own blood relatives dug up and threw you into? About two-thirds of the way into Palm Springs, the audience learns Sarah did something completely unforgivable — she slept with Abe the night before the wedding. Sarah let herself slip into the lowly image her family created for her, bringing her sister’s relationship into her path of self-destruction.
True to the rom-com formula, Sarah and Nyles have a falling out before getting back together at the end. But unlike other rom-coms, there is a greater urgency for these two to work on their respective personal issues before the triumph of a reunion.
Rather than running out of Abe’s room and away from her shame as she had on so many mornings, Sarah finally decides to face her transgression head-on. She tells Abe, “We both deserve every single fucking terrible thing that is coming toward us” but more importantly, she tells him, “I’m done being shitty.” Sarah is not only determined to escape the time loop, she’s determined to become a better person, a person beyond the image her family has thrust upon her.
With Sarah having disappeared, Nyles is alone again with nothing but the pain he thought he was shielding himself from. It was easy for him to “pretend not to care” and distract himself with the company of another person. You can just stash away your feelings and slam the door shut behind you. But with the distraction gone, the door is free to fly open. Yet rather than wallow in sorrow and let his feelings drift away, Nyles finally gains the courage to open up and tells Sarah he loves her. And even though he fears leaving the comfort and predictability of the time loop, Nyles decides to leave with Sarah anyway. His love for her has finally overcome his fear of the unknown — both the unknown of the real world and the unknown of a real relationship.
During the customary rom-com final speech, Nyles tells Sarah, “To really know a person you need to see their entire package, the good and the bad.” Nyles and Sarah are no traditional rom-com leads; they’ve made their fair share of mistakes, they hide from their feelings, they hurt other people intentionally and unintentionally. But as far-fetched as their time loop circumstance is, it’s their struggles to be good people, and their eventual determination to get there, that grounds the pair in reality.
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