Safety Not Guaranteed
Finding a grain of original thought isn’t easy in the haboob of summer blockbusters, especially if you’re determined to hang your whole plot on the well-worn hook of time-travel.
The idea has been spinning around the clock for centuries, and it doesn’t get any better with age — or advanced technology. Let’s face it, when it comes to being there before — we’ve been there before.
Yet, it’s precisely this sense of ennui that gives Safety Not Guaranteed a fresh, and undeniably appealing, edge.
The narrative feature debut from director Colin Trevorrow, Safety Not Guaranteed begins in a room full of professional cynics and naysayers, otherwise known as journalists. The Seattlebased lifestyle magazine they work for needs content, so a group of interns and veterans start pitching the predictably uptight female boss.
One particularly foul staffer, Jeff (Jake Johnson), focuses on a small classified ad in the local paper. The spot solicits a passenger for an amateur time machine, and Jeff is convinced it could make for some perfectly goofy copy — as well as a touching piece of “poor loner” pathos.
Being a smarmy, self-confident know-it-all — who also happens to be close-cropping the boss behind closed doors — Jeff gets what he wants: a paid trip to cottage country, where he can go back to his own past and lay eyes on a former flame who still kindles his privates.
Because Jeff has his own agenda, he decides to send his two interns into the breach, but really, only Darius (Aubrey Plaza of Parks and Recreation) has the wherewithal to ask any questions, and get any answers.
Within a few hours, she finds the time travel advertiser. His name is Kenneth, and she kind of likes his frequency.
A cute guy with the look of a wounded puppy, Kenneth is played by newly minted indie darling Mark Duplass (Jeff, Who Lives at Home). Duplass has an oddly messy screen presence that feels stalled between over-the-hill leading man and Spalding Grey sophisticate, but this is a good thing, because it all makes for great character, easily the very best part of Trevorrow’s movie because real people always transcend cliche.
That said, we can never tell if Kenneth is entirely sane. Then again, no one in this gang of misfits feels completely balanced. They all have problems: Darius is getting over the death of her mother. Jeff is eager to tell anyone he drives an Escalade and Arnau (Karan Soni) remains a virgin.
By the end of the reel, each character has faced his or her problems and arrived at some sense of closure, but the path takes some weird turns.
For instance, Darius and Kenneth start up a romantic fling while Jeff makes it his mission in life to get Arnau some man-woman action. If the writing weren’t as good as it is, much of this would feel like a soggy Superbad or a dud Napoleon Dynamite, but Derek Connolly’s script finds sweet touches, and more than one cutting editorial joke.
Jeff proves the film’s chief redeeming feature. An arrogant twit when we first meet him, the short, ordinary-looking douchebag may well be the most accurately drawn portrait of reportorial swagger we’ve ever seen. He flirts with teenagers at the convenience store and talks incessantly about his own achievements.
By the time we realize the time machine device applies to every character in the film, seeking to solve some puzzle of the past or the future, we’re already firmly living in the moment, where the present is a gift that can be opened every day.
The movie spares us such Hallmark statements, but Safety Not Guaranteed wears its heart on its sleeve. There are times when it gets tangled in some heavy machinery, but thanks to solid performances from the relatively unknown cast, it comes out the other side intact — and full of love.