Last summer, I got to see The Lonely Island live in concert at Summerfest. I was already a pretty big fan, but it was one of the most entertaining live shows I have ever seen. Since then, I hadn’t heard much from them. That is until I caught an interview with Seth Meyers and Andy Samberg talking about how they had a movie coming out on Hulu. I didn’t look at any reviews, I didn’t watch any trailers, I just loaded up Hulu that night and watched Palm Springs.
For a very generic synopsis, Palm Springs is about a blasé dude named Niles (Andy Samberg) and an alcoholic/black sheep-ish woman named Sarah (Cristin Milioti) who have their lives intertwined after meeting at a wedding. I love how little I knew about this movie going in, and I would recommend that if you check it out, you do the same. The story is a romance that we have seen many times before, but something about it seems so fresh. Sure, if you think too hard there are some definite plot holes. One scene at the very end should have probably been removed, since it kind of deconstructs everything that the film tried to explain, but I really didn’t care. I thought the comedy was entertaining, and the relationship between Niles and Sarah was really well developed.
Andy Samberg often plays the idiot, and while his character is never touted as a “genius”, he’s really relatable playing a guy who is stuck in his ways and scared to move on to bigger and better things. Cristin Milioti is great as well, although some scenes seemed a little over-acted to me. JK Simmons is in this film as well, which was a welcome surprise. I think he actually stole the show for me, which I shouldn’t be surprised by coming from J. Jonah Jameson himself!
I feel like I am on such a roll of good movies. First Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga and now Palm Springs. Palm Springs is not perfect, but I think that everyone can find something to like about it. It’s short, sweet, funny, and exactly the kind of escapism we all need.
8/10
CinemAddikted 