"Safety Not Guaranteed" on Netflix

[nuxvomica]

I saw this movie way back in 2013 and when I noticed it was a new addition to Netflix, I decided to watch it again as I couldn't remember all the plot details but I did recall it was a well-written and superbly acted low-key romantic comedy.

The film is inspired by an actual classified ad that was posted asking for a companion on a journey back in time. The ad specified that candidates should bring their own weapons and that their safety was not guaranteed. Jake Johnson (New Girl) plays a writer for a Seattle magazine, who successfully pitches doing a followup to see whether the ad was just a joke or the offer was made by a true-believer nutcase. He brings along two interns, played by Aubrey Plaza (Parks and Recreation) and Karan Soni (Miracle Workers).

While Johnson's character uses the assignment as a pretext to reconnect with a girl he met in the small ocean-side town he visited as a teenager, Aubrey's character takes the lead with the purported time traveler, played by Mark Duplass (Goliath), a grocery stock clerk whose mission is to go back to 2001 to save the life of his girlfriend.

The story moves pretty fast and one is constantly teased about whether Duplass can really time-travel as the relationship between him and Plaza develops in a series of hilarious and sometimes poignant conversations between an amused Plaza and an earnest Duplass, usually set in the front seat of his car or during training exercises in the forest. Ultimately the movie is about regret and the sometimes crazy ways people try to resolve it, and that the effort may be worthwhile despite the risks to our safety.