Movie Review - Safety Not Guaranteed

Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

Starring Aubrey Plaza, Jake Johnson, Mark Duplass, and Karan Soni

Directed by Colin Trevorrow

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

Remove the curse words and the character who's obsessed with hooking up with his high school flame from twenty years ago and Safety Not Guaranteed feels like a movie Jimmy Stewart and Katherine Hepburn could have starred in seventy years ago.  There's an innocence surrounding this film about Kenneth (Mark Duplass), a guy who posts a help wanted ad in a local newspaper where he says he's seeking out people who want to travel back in time with him (their "safety not guaranteed"), and Darius (Aubrey Plaza), the girl who interns at a local magazine that is doing a story about Kenneth who they all deem as cuckoo.  As Kenneth and Darius get to know each other better, it's inevitable that they're going to begin to fall in love for each other despite their best efforts not to wander down that path.

The problem with Safety Not Guaranteed is the same problem that faces many other indie comedies -- a good premise, but not enough plot to sustain itself.  Despite its under ninety-minute run time, there's just not enough here to make a full-fledged movie feel necessary.  The whole thing was quite cute and Aubrey Plaza's dry delivery is a perfect fit for the dialog she's given, but whenever the film left the world of Kenneth and Darius, it falls flat.  There are two subplots involving Darius's co-workers -- one dealing with head writer Jeff (Jake Johnson) and his mission to find his high school sweetheart and sleep with her again (which is the only reason he took on writing this article in the first place) and the other focused on Jeff's desire to get Arnau (Karan Soni), the mild-mannered Indian computer geek intern, laid for the first time -- neither of which add anything to the overarching storyline.  I can't even find an incidental thematic connection between them and the main plot.

Safety Not Guaranteed is fine.  I laughed enough to not make it a complete bust.  But it never quite comes together in a way that would make it something truly recommendable.

The RyMickey Rating:  C+