Safety Not Guaranteed – Review

Recent college graduate Darius Britt (Plaza) interns at a Seattle magazine publisher, while living with her father (Garlin) and attempting to sort out her life. In a work meeting, she volunteers for an assignment with seasoned company writer Jeff Schwensen (Johnson), who has discovered a classified ad in the newspaper purporting to have discovered time travel.

The ad is looking for someone to join the discoverer on their journey, which sparks a magazine investigation for a possible article. Schwensen’s article is approved by the company boss (Rajskub) who accepts volunteers Darius and Arnau (Soni), another young intern.

Schwensen figures since it is close to his hometown that he can use the time to catch up with old friends, and can barely be bothered to do the assignment, so Darius takes it upon herself to track down the mysterious ad’s author. She finds him to be Kenneth Calloway (Duplass), who works at a local store. Schwensen’s attempt to connect with him rings as phony with Calloway, who clearly balks at any non-genuine connection attempts. Darius again steps up to the plate, herself meeting with the Calloway.

Without getting too deep into further plot points, the story takes off from Darius and Calloway’s meeting. Fun and smart lines fill the script’s entirety, and a sense of wonder is retained throughout, while a mystery remains as to what is actually true.

Safety Not Guaranteed plays out with a wacky and quirky energy, however retains a grounded and honest look at life, emotion and the desire to change the past, or at least reconcile with it. With a such a strange script premise, the film really needed to get a lot of its elements right to succeed and it fully does. The comedy is well balanced and relatable, so are the characters, even the strange Calloway. It helps to have such a strong cast who are all used to both comedy and drama fundamentals.

This movie is a really fun time, full of witticism and a sense of wonder. It feels good to watch the characters go through their arcs, some growing, others not so much. Despite having so many comedy elements, the movie is truly a mature affair with interesting themes.