NEONLove can strike anywhere at any time, even if you’re travelling through time, outer space, or virtual reality. That’s why romantic comedies are a blank slate: you can fold a rom-com plot into any other genre, from slasher to action, and still show a complex, human story.Even the time loop film has managed to incorporate romance, despite the wild sci-fi trope inherent to the premise. Groundhog Day is the classic example, but five years ago today, an underrated streaming film elevated the time loop to a new level of intelligence and romance. Palm Springs begins with Nyles (Andy Samberg) catching the attention of Sarah (Cristin Milioti) at the wedding of Sarah’s sister. Sarah is intrigued by how effortlessly he moves through the party, and the two hit it off, but things take a sharp turn when Roy (J.K. Simmons) shows up and shoots Nyles with an arrow. Nyles flees into a mysterious glowing cave, Sarah follows him, and suddenly she wakes up on the day of the wedding all over again. Sarah eventually pieces things together: Nyles stumbled into the cave and got caught in its time loop, he later brought in Roy, who now resents him for it, and now Sarah is stuck in the loop too. Initially, Sarah also hates Nyles for trapping her in a day she wasn’t enjoying, but over time, the two bond as dirtbags making the most of a life with no consequences. It is, in its own weird way, the perfect recipe for a rom-com.Palm Springs premiered in July 2020, when a lot of us also felt like we were living the same day over and over again, and seeing two people who weren’t exactly role models find a connection felt otherworldly. It’s not a movie about finding the perfect person, but about finding the person who gets how you’re not perfect. “What if we get sick of each other?” Sarah asks at one point. “We’re already sick of each other,” Nyles replies. “It’s the best.”Nyles and Sarah revel in their eternal vacation before realizing they need to escape the loop. | NEONWhile Groundhog Day’s time loop ends when its hero learns to become a better person, Palm Springs takes a more sci-fi approach. After Nyles reveals a secret that makes Sarah furious with him, she becomes determined to break out of the loop — it’s a little hard to avoid your ex when you two are the only ones in the same time stream. Instead of looking within, Sarah hits the books, and with unlimited time, she learns everything she can about quantum physics, relativity, and wormholes, even consulting experts and conducting experiments. So many time loop movies rely on mysticism and handwaving that it’s fun to see someone puzzle their way out, and it doesn’t hurt that Milioti and Samberg are both comedic geniuses with sparkling chemistry. They play their roles not as rom-com leads, but as minor characters thrust into an unexpected story. By the time the two of them confess their love before making a last-ditch escape attempt, they know falling for the other person in your temporal anomaly doesn’t make any sense. But when does love ever make sense?Palm Springs is streaming on Hulu.