Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

Directed by Colin Trevorrow; produced by Derek Connolly, Stephanie Langhoff, Peter Saraf, Collin Trevorrow, Marc Turtletaub

Darius Britt (Aubrey Plaza) is disenchanted with her job as an intern at a Seattle-based magazine, and dissatisfied with her life in general. Things may change for her when she is chosen to join reporter Jeff (Jake Johnson) and fellow intern Arnau (Karan Soni) on an assignment. They are sent to a small seaside town to interview Kenneth (Mark Duplass), who advertised for a companion with whom to travel in time. Whether the man is genuine, serious, deluded or crazy, Darius will find her life altered, in more ways than one.

One of the advantages of choosing to watch films based on one-sentence synopses is that sometimes I come across small but quietly delightful films such as Safety Not Guaranteed. Though the description in the first paragraph suggests either a comedy or science fiction, it is in fact a movie about relationships more than anything else, about relationships and how they can create regret and remorse, yet also how they can restore and rehabilitate. The title comes from the advertisement - seen in the poster - and can be applied to relationships as much as to time-travel.

Certainly, there is a large element of comedy in the film. It is low-key, deadpan comedy for the most part. Plaza and, to a lesser extent, Duplass, deliver most of the humour in that style. Johnson’s sarcastic, louder style also provides some fun. The amusing lines feel less like dialogue written for a movie and more like banter among acquaintances. They make the viewer smile rather than laugh; not because they aren’t funny, but because they are realistic, and real life is rarely laugh-out-loud hilarious.

The writing by Derek Connolly, as may be inferred, is very good. This was Connolly’s first cinematic feature, and he shows great talent here. It’s rather a disappointment to see that he went into big budget monster movies afterward. To be fair, I have seen none of those, but I can’t help thinking he has a real flare for the smaller, more intimate stories. His latest - Deep Cover - may be a return to something closer to Safety Not Guaranteed.

The script shows insight into characters as diverse as Darius and Jeff, and actually creates a fuller person in the latter, a cynical, sardonic young man who nonetheless appears to harbour deep, traditional desires. The screenplay ties relationships, and the mistakes and lost opportunities inherent in them, to time-travel, and how most people wish they could go back to repair or re-do what is already written in the stone of the past. There are a few holes in the story, such as Kenneth’s ad stating that he has ‘done this once before’, though nothing is mentioned of this and, indeed, his preparations in the film imply that he has not.

The acting is perfect for the movie. Plaza is quite winning, hiding her character’s vulnerability in a kind of Wednesday Addams morbidity; she is well-paired with Duplass. He creates a character who is part action hero, part science nerd. Johnson’s work is touched upon above: combining with the writing, he makes Jeff someone you might not want to know, but would like to see happy even so.

Safety Not Guaranteed is a well-crafted film, taking the notion of time-travel correcting the past and making that notion more personal and more universal than in many other films with similar premises. It achieves this by showing that the decisions that change lives come not as a result of travel but in the preparations for it. And, in what I perceive to be a clever twist, it encapsulates that idea in the last few lines of dialogue - indeed, in the last two words.