Safety Not Guaranteed arrives like a breath of fresh air. Wearing its low budget like a badge of honor, the directorial debut of former Saturday Night Live intern Colin Trevorrow has heart and wit aplenty. The rare science fiction film that places lavish attention not on special effects but on the special quirks of its characters, it’s gratifyingly amusing one minute, touchingly heartfelt the next.
The set up is a classified ad (based on a real one) inviting a respondent to “go back in time with me. This is not a joke…must bring your own weapons. I have only done this once before….safety not guaranteed.” An unlikely trio of young Seattle Magazine writers set out to goof on the story by staking out the post office box of the ad’s author, grocery clerk, Kenneth (Mark Duplass). After the magazine’s staff writer in the group, Jeff (Jake M. Johnson) flubs a visit to Kenneth, intern Darius (Aubrey Plaza, Parks and Recreation) takes over. Instead of approaching Kenneth as if he has two heads, Darius, up to this point in the film a quivering mess of insecurities, puts on an hilarious sheen of tough resolve. Her hyper-aggressiveness is downright cooing to Kenneth. The two hit it off, Darius keeps her cover, and the shenanigans begin. A subplot of slacker Jeff looking up an old high school flame (his real reason for the trip) while goading the other nerdy intern Amau (Kagan Soni), into drinking and picking up girls, is equally engaging.
Winner of the Waldo Salt Sundance screenwriting award (and written by Derek Connolly, also a former SNL intern), Safety Not Guaranteed evolves largely into Plaza’s film. She’s delightful as a character presented with the dual pressures of Kenneth’s distrustful screening and consistent testing of her, and Jeff’s indifferent yet simultaneously bossy mentoring. Her back and forth from tough-girl-ready-to-time-travel, to her vulnerable normal self, is a joy to behold. Duplass (whose directing credits include Jeff, Who Lives at Home and the nifty Cyrus) enhances his character’s own contrast between ham-handed nutjob and earnest loner. Kenneth blows stale air about people following him, urgently sets up stealth hijacks of equipment for the “mission,” then picks up a guitar and reluctantly sings Darius an “unfinished” ditty that blows her away. If his approach as an actor seems almost sketchy, the scatterdness finally resonates as Kenneth’s true nature rather than any unrealized technique. (Indy filmgoers will soon be exposed to near simultaneous releases of Duplass as an actor in Your Sister’s Sister and People Like Us.)
By failing to succumb to normal cliches and by virtue of its genuine dialogue and nuanced acting, Safety Not Guaranteed achieves a simple, infectious elegance. It develops an interest in its characters from the first frame to the last that is all too rare these days.
8. 5 Paeans to Old Fashioned Storytelling With a Modern Edge (Out of 10)