I mean, is it not preposterous?
No, it is not, and this makes me think you didn't read what I wrote. You do make a fine analysis, though I think some of it is a reach, but your communication skills are wanting, and you pick on small specific points without seeing the totality of what a person is expressing. I'm not claiming perfection whatsoever, only that I wish you might consider what another says without feeding into the impulse toward mockery. Considering the high quality of your analytical abilities, leading with mockery at minimum reduces the value of what you're going to say to the person to whom you are going to say it. There is no reason I should want to take you seriously or engage with you if you do that, even if you're right and I'm wrong.
Disclaimer: I am not perfect at this, either. I bungle, I make things overly personal when they should not be and I should be focusing on the film. I'm just getting a little irritated at you starting with an insulting tone, and then trying to engage. Even if someone calls you out on it, you deflect, which is why I'm being so direct about it here.
Eh, I don't think just because the film is a romcom it has to follow the conventions of one. In part it's because of how it breaks out of those conventions that makes it so interesting and different.
Also, the farther away I get out from the film, the more I think there is to glean here from the core relationship. Nyles plays up the typical dude who doesn't care but he's also the one who falls in love first when they have sex for the "first time." Sarah just sees it as having fun and thinks she can get on without a relationship because her doomed marriage means she's already been down the road to commitment and failed. So why not just be independent?
The film, to me, really speaks about how we can all get into these places where we fill stuck, both in a relationship (Nyles) and as a single person (Sarah). Even as their relationship progresses through the time loop, both are still stuck because there's something from their past they won't let go that lets them move on. Nyles has to admit he does truly care and Sarah has to realize that it's okay for relationships to be mundane and boring.
Sure, the quantum physics also gets them out which I think is more clever and less trite than a they fall in love and break the time loop moment. But it's also clear from the final scene that they've now reached a place where both are ready to move forward with a new relationship, hence it finally becomes tomorrow instead of today, because today is not about the present, today is about living in a past that you can never move beyond.
I don't think it has to follow the conventions of one, either, but this one does far too much for my liking. There is the Meet-Lose-Get Back with all the requisite humor and euphoria up top, sorrow and reflection after, and then the predictable reunion and end of time loop. And there are sticking points for me in logic and reason that ambiguity often helps me move beyond, which is why the "solving it with science" even though it's impossible thing sticks with me. Now that I'm thinking about different possible endings to this film, it's the only one I can come up with that seems completely unacceptable.
I prefer they don't break the time loop. That to me would've been the most interesting way to end it. I agree falling in love to break the time loop would've been the worst way from an emotional/manipulative standpoint, even though it would give me one less thing upon which to fixate. I'm more reacting to the film than wanting to rewrite it, though. But if we're going to, another way to break the time loop might be they ride out on the dinosaurs. Or a black monolith comes and saves them or something.
The character arcs I think do more for you than they do for me, which is all good. I see your point about what makes Nyles and Sarah unique and the insights into personal growth the film is making. Romcoms, however fractured or experimented with, are often a hard sell for me as a whole. Eternal Sunshine is a top ten all-time film for me. Lost In Translation had me 'til
the kiss at the end (truly don't think that's a spoiler for anyone here, but I don't want to assume). And theeeeennnnn, it's tough. Does Her fit? Jules and Jim?
I haven't even talked about how aesthetically meh this film is to me outside of my beloved dinosaurs. Even the CGI fissures in the rock from the recurring earthquake looked a bit preposterous, but that's not stuff for a spoilers thread.
I think you all are going to make me hate this film.
