Crew
Director – Patrick Cassir, Screenplay – Andy Siara with Jim Birmant & Patrick Cassir, Based on the Film Palm Springs (2020) Written by Andy Siara, Producers – Antoine Gandaubert, Nathalie Toulza Madar, Emilie Pegurier, Antoine Rein & Priscilla Siney, Photography – Yannick Ressigeac, Music – Low Entertainment, Additional Music – Matthieu Hernandez. Production Company – Summer Studio/TF1 Studio.
Cast
Tarek Boudali (Paul), Camille Rowe (Louna), Youssef Hadji (Hakim), Claire Chust (Justine), Bertrand Usclat (Luc), Marie Papillon (Gala), Nicolas Berno (Alan), jean-Michel Lahmi (Louna’s Father), Florence Muller (Louna’s Mother), Alexandra Roth (Nadya)
Plot
Paul has accompanied his girlfriend Justine to Morrocco for the wedding of her friend Gala. The bored Paul connects with Gala’s sister Louna in the bar. She follows him inside a cave only for her to wake in the morning and find that she is replaying the previous day over again. Paul explains that he has been trapped in a loop replaying this same day forever. As they explore the day, an attraction grows between the two of them.
Groundhog Day (1993) premiered the theme of the Timeloop film with a person stuck in one day and forced to repeat it over and over. The theme has proven surprisingly popular since with quite a number of other films on the subject. One of the best of these was Palm Springs (2020), an hilarious effort with Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti trapped in a loop in the same day at a resort during the wedding of mutual friends/relatives.
Un Mariage Sans Fins (A Marriage Without End) is a French-language remake of Palm Springs. It relocates the wedding venue from Palm Springs in the California desert to Morocco. Otherwise, apart from the substitution of the character names, it is Palm Springs fairly much scene for scene – the sole difference I could detect is a more upbeat ending than Palm Springs had. It takes us through Andy Samberg/Tarek Boudali’s boredom at the familiarity of everything, his connection with Cristin Milioti/Camille Rowe after she enters the cave and becomes caught in the timeloop too, their attempts to escape and the introduction of J.K. Simmons/Youssef Hadji as another person trapped in the loop. The screenplay here is even credited to Andy Siara who wrote Palm Springs, with Jim Birmant and director Patrick Cassir offering ‘additional input’.
I really enjoyed Palm Springs but I didn’t enjoy it in the same way seeing it rehashed in Un Mariage Sans Fins. I am trying to analyse the reasons why. Part of it is that Palm Springs run to 90 minutes whereas Un Mariage Sans Fins tells the same plot ten minutes shorter. I probably need to go a re-view Palm Springs but it felt as though it had more of an ease in its telling, whereas here there is the feeling that it is skipping through the plot quite quickly.
The other issue would be that Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti struck up a great comedic connection in Palm Springs but I didn’t get the same buzz between Tarek Boudali and Camille Rowe playing out the same in Un Mariage Sans Fins. They go through the expected lines and scenes together but you don’t feel any sparks flying between them that makes you believe they have earned it when they walk off into the sunset together. Indeed, there seems more feeling invested in Camille Lowe going off to study at Youssef Hadji’s place and watching him and his children than there is in the main romantic scenes.
Trailer here