RogerBW's Blog

Safety Not Guaranteed 10 April 2014

2012, dir. Colin Trevorrow, Aubrey Plaza, Mark Duplass: IMDb / allmovie

A journalist and two interns, trying for a human-interest story, interview a man who's placed an advertisement for a companion in time travel.

While there are obviously science-fictional elements here, this is primarily a drama that subverts the romantic comedy template: there are plenty of damaged people here, and some of them find the answers they need while others don't. Budget is obviously and visibly minimal, but it does the film no harm; it's deliberately anchored in mundane reality, after all, and a big budget would simply have been distracting. The locations and props get out of the way to allow us to focus on the acting and characters, and I found them both really good.

This is Plaza's film, as her intern Darius leads a double life between befriending Kenneth the potential time traveller and reporting on him to her boss Jeff. She's up to the challenge, and I'm disappointed that she hasn't had more major roles after this, though a TV schedule is demanding.

Mark Duplass as Kenneth is convincing as someone who may or may not be dangerously insane but is certainly unpredictable, but Jake Johnson as Jeff is effectively the second lead for much of the film; he's nominally in charge, but he's grabbed the assignment as an excuse to look up an old girlfriend, and his attempts to get her into bed parallel the growing closeness between Darius and Kenneth.

Some moments are perhaps over-cutesey and self-indulgent, and the running theme of how one can't recapture one's youth is sometimes a bit too much in the foreground, but overall this is a most effective piece to which I may well return. Highly recommended.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]


  1. Posted by Phil Masters at 08:03am on 11 April 2014

    Aubrey Plaza plays a hugely entertaining deadpan in Parks and Recreation. I get the impression that her career is doing okay at present.

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime crystal cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2021 hugo 2022 hugo 2023 hugo 2024 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1