Movie Review: “Groundhog Day” goes Gallic, “Palm Springs” swings Moroccan — “An Endless Wedding”

The French take on “Palm Springs” is something of a departure from the Hulu original film starring Andy Samberg, Cristin Miliotti and J.K. Simmons.

Director and co-writer Patrick Cassir’s “An Endless Marriage” is just as funny, but more brisk and with a panache that the cute but often crude Max Barbakow film never managed, right down to its title in French — “Un mariage sans fin,” A Wedding/Marriage Without End.”

This destination wedding is at a Morrocan resort. And the outsider swaggering through it, all tropical shirt, jaded grin and je nais se quois is Paul, played by Tarek Boudali of the French “Babysitting” comedies.

He knows the wait staff by name, even if that always prompts a “Do I know you?” (in French with English subtitles) from them. He’s over his tone-deaf fiance, Justine (Claire Chust). We can see it in his eyes, in the cringe he barely suppresses as she stumbles through a song she’s performing for her best friend, the bridge, Gala.

He’s heard that mess before.

Gala (Marie Papillon)? She’s a bit bowled over by this runaway wedding — French, with Morrocan dancing, decor and ululating. The groom (Bertrand Usclat) moved here and has gone whole hog in the cultural appropriation department.

It’s all too much for Paul. He hates weddings, with their “idiotic table plans” and “chocolate fountains,” he mutters in voice-over narration. But he knows the drill. Even if the father of the bride is always wondering “Who IS that guy?” And the mother mutters “Why isn’t he DRESSED?”

When the dancing starts, he navigates the dance floor like he knows this Pac-Man maze by heart, grabbing that next drink that he’s certain will show up in just that hand at just this moment.

And when the maid of honor, the bride’s big sister Louna (Camille Rowe) stumbles through a toast she hasn’t prepared, he gallantly steps up to the mike and to the rescue.

He may hate weddings, but “Who are you?” Paul is the grease hat makes this wheel turn.

And when it turns out Louna hates weddings too, she and her toast-rescuer might just connect. Especially when she learns he’s engaged.

“I drink like a fish” and “I only sleep with unavailable men.”

But an attack by a crossbow-wielding avenger (Youssef Hadji) interrupts that. A dash to a cave emitting a supernatural light further confuses her. And when he is snatched away, not to worry. “We’ll meet again…and again…”

Louna awakens to the same man-in-her-shower shame that she did on this long wedding day. And tracking down Paul, who’s also up with the first discordant notes of Justine’s attempted “song,” just confirms what she fears.

“We’re in a time loop…a vortex.” Don’t bother with the RFK idiotic “science” of the situation. Don’t fight it. You can’t run away from it. Don’t kill yourself. This is your lot, to relive this “Endless Wedding,” day after day into eternity.

The louche Paul has endured this day “thousands of times” already. He reads the same newspaper every morning, reassured that “nothing’s changed.” He visits a cafe in town where he knows the regulars by name (they have no idea who he is) and he plays the lottery, and wins, because he knows the right numbers.

Can Louna give herself over to this? Can Hakim, the vengeful crossbowman, be placated or reasoned with?

Will anyone learn to “Live in the present, nothing else matters,” as Paul claims he has?

Now that Amazon has joined Netflix in that “Let’s remake our intellectual property (scripts) for all the many cultures that we serve” ethos, streaming consumers who don’t mind subtitles are going to run into the same plot more than once.

You can either “I’ve seen ‘Palm Springs’” and move on, or you drop in and see how another filmmaker might tailor the tale for another part of the world, vive la difference and all that. I found the Franco-Moroccan touches amusing and charming, the laughs less crass.

The “oh no they didn’t” turns in the tale, the “history” of our “hero” and the like are more amusing than explosively funny. I remember the oft-stolen-from classic “Groundhog Day” a lot better and more fondly than the much more recent “Palm Springs.” But thescattered big laughs in the latter film are genuine spit-takes. There’s little here in Morocco that manages that.

However, this remake just breezes by, a comedy more in touch with its tone, more whimsy than wham-bam-thanky-ma’am and the like. It’s less carnal and more romantic.

Boudali never lets us see him straining for laughs, and Rowe, Chust and Papillon have their moments.

And while neither film is on a plane with “Groundhog Day,” they’re certainly on a par with each other. Vive le difference and all that.

Rating: 16+, suicide, sexual situations, profanity

Cast: Tarek Boudali, Camille Rowe, Claire Chust, Youssef Hadji, Bertrand Usclat and Marie Papillon.

Credits: Directed by Patrick Cassir, scripted by Jim Birmant and Patrick Cassir, based on the “Palm Springs” script by Max Barbakow and Andy Siara. An MGM release on Amazon Prime.

Running time: 1:21