Safety Not Guarenteed Review (2012)

Our central characters

Colin Trevorrow’s “Safety Not Guaranteed” is not a film that I loved, in fact I am not even sure that I enjoyed it all that much, it certainly is not a film that I think I will be in any rush to see again anytime soon. I do find myself thinking about it an awful lot though, the characters, the storyline, and the themes, so what is it that has kept me thinking about Safety Not Guaranteed? I guess I had better tell you.

On the hunt for the time machine!

The storyline is simple in premise; a reporter recruits two interns in an attempt to write an article on an advertisement claiming that time travel is possible. After finding out that the male lead, named Kenneth (played wonderfully by Mark Duplass) might be a little bit crazy, Jeff Schwensen, the leading reporter, decides that the job of attracting a slightly crazed time traveller would be best suited for his female partner, Darius (Audrey Plaza). The story then follows the training that Darius has to go through to not only gain the trust of Kenneth but also to get ready for her journey through time. Without spoiling anything, the film switches gears, becoming both an action film at certain points with the heist of certain pieces of scientific equipment and then following a romance format with Darius realising that she is falling in love with Kenneth. The film of course has it sci-fi elements too; with the whole point of the story being that this man can time travel and is hoping to take someone back with him.

Arnau all pimped out

The themes are an important part of this film. All of our central characters are in search of something, and many of these things are lost in the past. We have Kenneth who is trying to go back in time to get the girlfriend he lost in a terrible accident (or was she his girlfriend?) and then we have Darius who wants to see her mum and save her from dying. Jeff who is played by Jake Johnson is in search of his girlfriend from high school and these are his actual underlying reasons for going back to the coastal town in which the film is set. The second intern Arnau is a little different, as he is in search of something in the present, and that is a girl of which he can lose his virginity with, although like all the other characters he isn’t exactly living in the present trying to perhaps hold onto his childlike innocence. Another central theme is trust, and it is the trust that each of these characters build with their respective relationships that is a focal point of the film. Kenneth eventually begins to trust in Darius, and even though his trust is slightly misplaced, the love that the two characters end up sharing is born from this trust and it is genuine. Jeff places all of his trust in his former girlfriend from high school, and this trust is eventually shattered. Jeff asks her to move back to the big city with him and she rejects him and because of this rejection he loses all faith in her and it seems in love in general. Arnau might have the biggest trust issues out of any character in the whole film. Karan Soni who plays Arnau gives us an insight into Arnau that due to him being anti-social and not having very many friends is reluctant to trust Jeff when it comes time to lose his virginity, thinking that Jeff is just attempting to “embarrass him” and isn’t actually trying to be his friend at all. Jeff then “pimps” Arnau out, and tells him that there is a girl in the next room that really likes him and that he should just go for it, and unlike Jeff, once Arnau places all of his trust into someone it actually pays off. The thing about these characters is that they are in some capacity all socially awkward, for example, Arnau is a virgin and at the age of 22 it might seem strange. Darius of course is a lonely girl, she doesn’t really have any friends and in the beginning of the film she is treated horribly by her boss at the internship. Kenneth of course is just a weird guy, and there is no other way of describing him, he thinks he can time travel and he is socially outcast because of that. Finally this film is above all else about loss and trying to deal with that. Loss is something that everyone can relate to, we all have to deal with it in some capacity and Trevorrow knows this. Showing how people can come to terms with death in a rather fantastical way but it’s still characters dealing with loss and death and of course that still makes it relatable.

Not much chemistry...

In many ways I don’t want to like this film, I didn’t like the ending, and I honestly didn’t find the romance between Kenneth and Darius all that convincing. However I love what Trevorrow has to say about the way we as humans deal with loss and death and how we attempt to deal with it. Everyone at some point has had the fantasy of having a time machine and going back to fix things that we messed up. Trevorrow has his characters live out these fantasies and even though we don’t exactly know what they accomplish by going back, we know that some part of it has to be good. So what kept me thinking about Safety Not Guaranteed? I guess it would have to be the genius of the storyline, the theming, and of course the performances from Duplass and Plaza, and the interesting twists and turns that each of these characters have to go through to get to a happier place in their lives. Despite a flawed ending and a lack of a genuinely believable romance I think this is an indie film that everyone should watch.