NOTE: This is a reprint of my review from the Sundance Film Festival.
Guaranteed to be unlike any time travel film you'll ever see, the story revolves mostly around Darius(Plaza), a college grad not happy with her station in life and holding on to some pretty heavy emotional baggage over a past incident. She interns at a Seattle magazine run by a shrew of a boss(Mary Lynn Rasjkub) and a bunch of editors who wouldn't know a story if it bit them on the butt. Except for Jeff(Johnson), a blunt and sarcastic writer who wants to profile a guy who put out a personal ad asking for a partner to travel back in time with. The ad notes their journey will be fraught with danger(hence "safety not guaranteed"), but also offers payment upon return.
What kind of guy puts out an ad for something like that? And what would be the purpose? Is he nuts? Jeff, Darius, and a shy intern named Arnau travel to Ocean View to find out the truth. There, they easily locate Kenneth(Duplass), a baggy clothed, martial artist/survivalist grocery store clerk with an encyclopedic knowledge of physics but an equally thick mistrust of people. Only Darius seems to be able to break through his emotional firewall, and despite thinking she may be "one of them"(agents tracking his every move), he slowly begins to accept her into his master plan.
The initial stages of Darius and Kenneth's partnership are played beautifully. Never fully committing to the idea to begin with, she comes up with this ultra-militarized version of herself, thinking that was the kind of partner a wannabe time soldier like Kenneth would want. Over time, as the two train together and reveal more of themselves and their shared painful pasts, she begins to believe in his mission, and maybe even develop some feelings for him.
Meanwhile, Darius's success gives Jeff the opportunity to indulge in his real reason for going to Ocean View, and that's to look up an old flame he hasn't seen in years. And if he can fit it into the schedule, get Arnau laid.
Before you ask, the time travel stuff does play a key role throughout, and isn't jettisoned once relationships start getting a little heavy. That's not to say we get too bogged down in the details, like arguing the space/time continuum or anything. It remains part of the two-fold mystery: whether or not Kenneth is crazy, and whether he can actually make his time travel device work.
At it's core, this is a film about lost loves, old regrets, and what happens when people are unable to move on and face the future. The script by Derek Connolly is surprisingly tight, grounded in such a way that I thought the more seasoned Duplass had written it. While there aren't a lot of characters to manage, the film is juggling a number of tones, and veering too far into any one could lead to disaster. Connolly and director Colin Trevorrow keep a steady focus on the characters, and making them as real as possible even in the midst of such a remarkable story.
Aubrey Plaza to me has always been one of those actresses that a handful of folks has claimed was great, but had never really proved it in anything meaningful. She always plays the same droll, mean-spirited character, and in general showed very little growth until now. This is the first time we get to see her as someone with a glimmer of hope and spark to them. As Darius, we get to see her as a believable romantic lead, someone you can believe a guy would fall head over heels for. When Darius' past begins to emerge, the film gets a touch more poignant, and Plaza handles those scenes extremely well.
Duplass and Johnson perhaps have the hardest jobs, because their characters are probably a bad line of dialogue away from becoming stereotypes. Always good at being the "regular guy"(such as in Humpday), Duplass smartly never plays Kenneth as a joke. Even when it looks like his delusions are too great to be ignored(such as during a botched lab break-in), Kenneth is always seen as someone who believes in his cause. He only wavers when it comes to his feelings, and at those moments Duplass shows a tender side that we hadn't previously seen. Having only seen Johnson in No Strings Attached and 2010's Paper Heart, his ability to make a selfish blowhard like Jeff amiable and a bit tragic was an eye opener. Jeff's story serves as something of a counter balance to that of Kenneth's, in that both men are searching for much the same thing but approaching it in very different ways. Jeff's story could have used a bit more time to develop, though, because just as it was getting interesting we don't see anymore of it.
Could Safety Not Guaranteed be a film that breaks out into the mainstream? That's a tough call, but it's got all the pieces to be a winner if given the right push.
