Review: Safety Not Guaranteed

 Time travel movies are a staple of american science fiction cinema. Everything from big blockbusters like the Back to the Future and Terminator franchises to smaller independent film like Donnie Darko and Primer. Time travel is a wonderful plot device that allows writers to accomplish all sorts of things but at the cost of the complicated story lines that come with paradoxes and alternate timelines. Sometimes the complication benefits the story, such is the case with Back to the Future, other times the complication makes the plot nearly incomprehensible like in Primer. But what if you made a time travel movie that didn't contain any of these complications because it didn't have any time travel? Would it still be a time travel movie? Does time travel still count if it's only emotional rather than physical? Is Aubrey Plaza the next Zooey Deschanel?

Safety Not Guaranteed is based on an actual classified ad that read: “Wanted: Someone to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not Guaranteed. I have only done this once before.” It stars Aubrey Plaza as an intern for a Seattle magazine researching this bizarre ad. After a little investigation she and her team (Jeff, an employee for the magazine, and Arnau, another intern) find the man behind the mystery, an eccetric grocery store clerk named Kenneth, played by The League's Mark Duplass. Plaza's character, Darius, is a quirky, intense loner who bonds with Kenneth's eccentricities. After getting to know one another Kenneth decides that Darius is worthy to be his companion through time and space. Darius is at first a little wary about Kenneth, which should she be considering his claim that he can travel through time as well as saying that he is being followed by government agents. However when it turns out that Kenneth really is being followed by a couple of Men in Black types, Darius realizes that Kenneth isn't as paranoid as she originally thought. Meanwhile Jeff (who originally took the assignment so he could hook up with his high school sweetheart who happens to live in the same town) and Arnau, a virginal Indian-American nerd go on their own adventures through time, metaphorically of course. Jeff tries to travel back to his high school days by reuniting with a lost love, but when he finds something more than an old flame, he finds maturity and the trip back in time turns into one headed for the future. Arnau also finds maturity by, with the help of Jeff, finding the courage to talk to girls and getting laid.The question that looms over the entire movie is whether or not Kenneth can actually travel through time. I mentioned above that there isn't any time travel in the movie, but that's not entirely true. What I meant to say is that the entire film takes place in the present and uses time travel as the subject rather than just a gimmick.

I'll be honest and say that I was disappointed in the film's lack of time travel. I was expecting to see a movie that was essentially “April Ludgate Travels Through Time” (which I would still love to see, if any one working at NBC happens to read this). Instead what I got was a thoughtful, character driven film that was more drama than comedy. The characters all had surprising depth to them, even the stereotypical jerk and nerd manage to avoid cliches and have life changing experiences. I was a little underwhelmed with Plaza's performance, she is still struggling to get out of the pigeonhole she does so well in. Mark Duplass on the other hand does an amazing job as the paranoid time-travelling genius. He shows a tremendous amount of sincerity, while managing to keep his character a mystery, while also showing paranoia as well as some light-heartedness. For a lesser actor, this role would be impossible, but Duplass pulls it off. His role as a director in similar mumblecore films like Cyrus and Jeff, Who Lives at Home almost certainly helped him prepare for this mumblecore goes sci-fi feature. The script manages to get a surprising amount of material from a rather trivial source. It's inspiring to see a writer create this whole script from just a joke newspaper ad from 1997. While it's never entirely clear if any time travel does or doesn't actually take place this film's ending will leave a smile on your face.