Palm Springs: What On Earth Is This ???

Palm Springs(Video On Demand)

Starring Andy Samberg as Nyles, Cristin Milioti ,J. K. Simmons ,Camila Mendes ,Tyler Hoechlin ,Meredith Hagner

Directed  by Max Barbakow

Rating: * ½

Much as I tried  to make sense  of  this  scatterbrained comedy about a disastrous wedding , all I could make out was this desperate strain in the storytelling to make the proceedings far funnier than the source material allows  it to be.

Palm Springs is  obviously written  by  brains that think they are super-cool. There is a hero Nyles who  wakes  up to the same  morning every day of his life after he  undergoes a time-loop experience at a wedding with one of the guests Sarah    who is  the  bride’s sister. I extracted this  vital information from the rubble of rabble and babble that inflicts the characters. Trust me, you don’t want to get into it.

There are cheating boyfriends,  fornicating  girlfriends, bewildered parents and  a potential killer named Roy played by J K Simmons of Whiplash fame,  here reduced to  a couple of scenes where he tries  to make sense of his character and why he is where is  in  the  first place.

 Palm Springs  is  that one  oddball  wacked-out  dopey comedy that comes along every year to beguile  all out better judgment with gags that sag. Everyone  will pretend to love the gags without  knowing why they are  supposed to be funny. Or why  two people living the same day  in a loop is supposed to be  funny when the  film narrating the  story is a dreary as the situation in which  our protagonists catch  themselves.

I have to admit  Andy Samberg  who also directs this zonked-out screwball screw-the-ball  comedy, has a certain charm  to  his personality. The  charm of an incorrigible  fibber who tells  lies that he thinks  are  interesting. But  for them to be  interesting those lies have to make sense first.

 I am still scratching my head.