Palm Springs is a directorial debut for Max Barbakow, otherwise a very fine screenwriter. It is flawless. Unfortunately regarding the Golden Globe nominations, it is listed just for the Best motion picture, musical or comedy, and for Best Actor in a motion picture, musical or comedy for the SNL alumni, Andy Samberg. This is a fantasy-comedy-mystery-romance with a witty screenplay and out of the ordinary. I don’t want any spoiler here in my short sort of review, with my deepest regrets, because everything must come as a pleasant surprise while watching the movie. Sometimes they spoil it even on the IMDb synopsis, which I have always found awful.
Andy Samberg & Cristin Milioti – Palm Springs 2020
[source of the pic: imdb.com]
Plot
Even the logline is revealing the frame for this highly entertaining comedy. I prefer to talk more about the actors than this movie’s plot. However, I’ll try.
We have a wedding in Palm Springs, a desert resort city in southern California, subjected to a nice climate and easy earthquakes. Tala, a clean-looking young girl marries Abe, a typical frat boy, the very popular sort. I’m sorry to say that they all seem to coach themselves for being the biggest assholes on the planet. It’s time for speeches, and one of the bridesmaids, Misty, makes an ass of herself, talking in hashtags like almost all the progressive brainwashed PC youngsters of our times. She is hilarious. For us, the watchers… she’s not actually hilarious, in real life, if you tell someone like her how hilarious she is, she’ll hate you for life. Misty points to Sarah, Tala’s half-sister, to make a speech, but she seems reluctant with her sneaky look and a hangoverish air. A guy takes the stage, Nyles, dressed among the elegant guests in a Hawaiian shirt and bathing trunks. He recurrently swallows from a beer can. He takes the microphone from his girlfriend, you’ll find out that they came to the wedding as partners, and makes “the most beautiful speech I’ve ever heard at a wedding”, as the groom’s grandma declares after that. By that, Nyles saves Sarah from talking in front of the people and assures a potentially easy laid for the night. You’ll also find out that between him and Misty, things aren’t very shiny at the moment. In a while, Nyles and Sarah head out together through the desert.
I’m sure you’ll enjoy it!
Cast – Palm Springs
Andy Samberg is Nyles, Misty’s boyfriend. Cristin Milioti is Sarah Wilder, Tala’s sister, Howard’s daughter. J. K. Simmons is Roy Schlieffen, a guest at the wedding. Meredith Hagner is Misty, Nyles’ girlfriend and also Tala’s bridesmaid. Camila Mendes is Tala Anne Wilder, the bride and Sarah’s half-sister. Tyler Hoechlin is Abraham Eugene Trent “Abe” Schlieffen, Tala’s fiancé. Chris Pang is Trevor, the wedding officiant. Peter Gallagher is Howard Wilder, Sarah and Tala’s father. Jacqueline Obradors is Pia Wilder, Sarah’s stepmother. June Squibb is Nana Schlieffen, Abe’s grandmother. Jena Friedman is Daisy the Bartender. Dale Dickey is Darla, a woman in a bar.
Directed by Max Barbakow and written by Andy Siara.
Andy Samberg is perfect in the role, a more serious one than what we know from the SNL alumni’s mockumentaries. His Globe nomination doesn’t come unmerited. Milioti is flawlessly witty and her character has more surprises to reveal through the end. I haven’t watched How I Met Your Mother‘s last season, and I don’t remember Jordan Belfort’s first wife in The Wall of Wall Street, so it’s like the first time for me, and I am impressed. The Oscar awarded Simmons is perfectly quirky here, you’ll find out how and why pretty soon after the film’s beginning.
Trailer – I decided against showing it
I consider it too revealing; one loses half the fun if one knows the outcome. Palm Springs happily is unpredictable and full of surprises. My only hope is in the “Foreign” in Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the same particle Merryl Streep used four years ago to trash Donald Trump in a Team America-style acted speech. I’m sure the “foreign press” didn’t suffer under such a heavy siege, the invoked America’s neighbors from the north, either. I read that Palm Springs deserves to win, but the Golden Globe will go to Borat Subsequent Moviefilm. I wish for the foreign press members to be less biased than the Academy members. Palm Springs is also full of genuine romance; you will be gratifyingly surprised.
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