by Eden
It’s easy enough to say that time loop movies are very much about being stuck, about repeating patterns, but Palm Springs makes the case that Nyles and Sarah were already failing to move forward in their lives even before getting trapped in a time loop.
“I don’t know. I think maybe we’re supposed to become, like, better people,” Margaret tells Mark when he’s saying they should spend their time loop days trying to discover all the “tiny perfect things” in the title. Then she adds, as an aside, “Though I don’t know how that could even be possible.”
If you’ve seen a time loop movie before, you know Sam will end up being a better person at the end. If you’ve seen a YA movie before, you know Sam will end up rejecting her jerky boyfriend for her sweet, sensitive childhood friend, Kent. Not much here is a surprise, but the larger issues and Deutch’s appealing performance allow this to rise above the generic beats of the material.
Haunter too often feels like a collection of ideas — a time loop movie, a reverse haunted house movie, a meditation on generational curses and lingering evil — Brian King’s script never quite brings it all together. There are some neat touches and Breslin’s Lisa, in her Siouxsie and the Banshees T-shirt, is a heroine to root for, but it never feels like it can fully stick to one concept and see it through.