Palm Springs      4 ½ stars

The last time I went to Sundance the Andy Samberg/Crintin Milioti romantic comedy was the hottest ticket going and I was not able to see it then (in spite of getting to over 30 movies). I finally saw it after it was released on Hulu and found it was a real delight. It seems to start out with the old formula of Groundhog Day as Andy Samberg’s Nyles is attending a wedding with his girlfriend Misty and finds that he is in a continuously repeating loop of the same day that always starts over the moment he falls asleep or is killed. He has apparently been at this for hundreds of days when we see him but things change when circumstances bring Cristin Milioti’s Sarah, the older sister of the bride into the same loop to share Nyles’s fate. Nyles plays seemingly amazing tricks on people as he already knows what events are going to happen to the second and tells people details about their lives that he has learned in previous iterations. Things take a darker turn as the two explore imaginative ways of trying to get out of the loop including killing themselves, but then speculate on how meaningless everything is in this strange world they find themselves in. Ultimately, the romance in the romantic comedy shows up as the two find out how much the other means to each. This “formulaic” romantic comedy works well and is definitely worth seeing.