Safety Not Guaranteed

Safety Not Guaranteed
Directed by	Colin Trevorrow
Produced by	Derek Connolly Stephanie Langhoff Peter Saraf Colin Trevorrow Marc Turtletaub
Written by	Derek Connolly
Starring	Aubrey Plaza Mark Duplass Jake Johnson Karan Soni
Music by	Ryan Miller
Cinematography	Benjamin Kasulke
Production company	Big Beach
Distributed by	FilmDistrict
Release dates	January 22, 2012 (2012-01-22) (Sundance Film Festival) June 8, 2012 (2012-06-08) (United States) December 26, 2012 (2012-12-26) (United Kingdom)
Running time	85 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$750,000[1]
Box office	$4.4 million[2]

Safety Not Guaranteed is a 2012 American comedy film^[3][4] directed by Colin Trevorrow and inspired by a 1997 Backwoods Home Magazine classified ad^[5]—itself written as a joke filler by Backwoods employee John Silveira^[5]—by a person asking for someone to accompany him in time travel. It was screened at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival where it won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award.^[6]

Plot

Darius Britt (Aubrey Plaza) is a disillusioned college graduate who lives at home with her widower father (Jeff Garlin) and interns at Seattle Magazine. One of the magazine's writers, Jeff Schwensen (Jake Johnson), proposes to investigate a newspaper classified ad that reads:^[7]

Wanted: Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. P.O. Box 91 Ocean View, WA 99393. You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before.

Jeff's story idea is approved by his boss, Bridget (Mary Lynn Rajskub). Jeff selects a team in the crassest manner possible – "All right. Give me the lesbian and the Indian, and I got a story"^[8] – meaning Darius and Arnau (Karan Soni), the latter of whom is a studious biology major interning at the magazine to diversify his resume. They travel to the seaside community of Ocean View to find and profile the person behind the ad. Jeff later reveals an ulterior motive for this assignment: to track down a long-lost love interest who lives in town.

Darius discovers that the person behind the ad is Kenneth Calloway (Mark Duplass), a stock clerk at a local grocery store. Jeff's attempt to approach Kenneth alienates him, so Jeff orders Darius to make contact. Darius' disaffected attitude serves her well, and she quickly endears herself to Kenneth as she poses as a candidate to accompany him on his mission. While Kenneth is paranoid and believes that "secret agents" are tracking his every move, Darius gains his trust as she participates in a series of training exercises in the woods around his house and begins to develop feelings for him. She tells Kenneth about the death of her mother when she was young and that her mission is to prevent it. Kenneth says his mission is to go back to 2001 and prevent the death of his old girlfriend Belinda, who was killed when someone drove a car into her house.

Meanwhile, Jeff tracks down Liz (Jenica Bergere), his fling from his teenage years; although she is not as attractive as his memories of her younger self, they reconnect and sleep together. He asks her to come back with him to Seattle, but she believes this is just another fling for Jeff, so she refuses. Upset by her rejection, Jeff takes Arnau out on the town, and they pick up some young women. Jeff tells Arnau to not waste his youth and convinces him to spend the night with one of the women.

The next morning, Jeff receives a phone call from Bridget, who has been following up the team's notes on the story; she informs him that Belinda (Kristen Bell) is still alive. During an interview, Darius learns Belinda was only friends with Kenneth and that Kenneth had driven into her then-boyfriend's house, but no one was injured. After the interview, Darius is questioned by two government agents who have been following Kenneth and believe that he may be a spy because of his communication with government scientists.

Darius returns to Kenneth's house to confront him about Belinda, but Kenneth rationalizes that his time traveling must have worked. Jeff then comes in to warn them that the government agents are also on the property. Kenneth panics and runs into the woods. Darius follows him and finds Kenneth has boarded his time machine, which has been integrated into a small boat. Darius apologizes for lying to Kenneth, tells him everything else they shared was real, and joins him on the time machine. Kenneth tells Darius that his mission has been updated, saying he now wants to go back for her. As Jeff, Arnau and the two government agents watch, Kenneth activates the time machine and it disappears, along with him and Darius.

Cast

• Aubrey Plaza as Darius Britt
• Mark Duplass as Kenneth Calloway
• Jake Johnson as Jeff Schwensen
• Karan Soni as Arnau
• Jenica Bergere as Liz
• Mary Lynn Rajskub as Bridget
• Kristen Bell as Belinda
• Jeff Garlin as Darius's father
• William Hall, Jr. as Shannon

Production

The film was shot in Seattle and Ocean Shores, Washington, and other locations within 30 miles of Seattle. It is also partially set in Seattle.^[9] The film was shot with a Sony F3 camera using old Panavision lenses, which gave the film a desired "Hal Ashby look" for director Colin Trevorrow.^[10] Production budget was reported by The Film Collaborative to be $750,000.^[1] Duplass and his brother Jay received Executive Producer credit.

Critical reception

Safety Not Guaranteed received critical acclaim and has a "certified fresh" score of 91% based on 137 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes with an average rating of 7.4 out of 10. The critical consensus states: "Safety Not Guaranteed's ostensibly modest ambitions are outmatched by the movie's strong performances, beguiling charm, and heartfelt story."^[3] The film also has a score of 72 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 31 critics indicating 'generally favourable reviews.'^[11]

Stephen Holden of The New York Times wrote that the story's shenanigans are "harnessed to a plaintive underlying theme about the fading dreams of those aspiring professionals in their 20s and 30s."^[4] Roger Ebert praised the film for the quality of the dialogue, characters with depth and dimension, as well as Mark Duplass for his balanced performance.^[12]

Awards

References

External links

• Official website
• Safety Not Guaranteed at the Internet Movie Database
• Safety Not Guaranteed at AllMovie
• Safety Not Guaranteed at Rotten Tomatoes
• Safety Not Guaranteed at Box Office Mojo