“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.”
What what you do if you saw this ad in a classified section somewhere? Would you respond? How far would you be willing to go, regardless of whether or not you believed you would actually travel in time? Safety Not Guaranteed, directed by Colin Trevorrow, takes the audience on an adventure to answer these questions, and the journey may cause you to ask a few of your own.
“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.”
What what you do if you saw this ad in a classified section somewhere? Would you respond? How far would you be willing to go, regardless of whether or not you believed you would actually travel in time? Safety Not Guaranteed, directed by Colin Trevorrow, takes the audience on an adventure to answer these questions, and the journey may cause you to ask a few of your own. The film’s heart comes from the ad quoted above, which was an actual classified ad printed in the Fall 1997 issue of Backwoods Home. The magazine’s Senior Editor, John Silveira, penned the purposeful joke ad that went on to inspire one of last year’s most imaginative films. Among its many accolades, Safety Not Guaranteed was the winner of 2012 Sundance Film Festival Waldo Salt Screening Award, as well as earning the film’s lead actress, Aubrey Plaza, the ALMA Award for Favorite Movie Actress in a comedy, as well as the Young Hollywood Award for Breakthrough Performance.
Darius Britt (Aubrey Plaza) is a hopelessly introverted pessimist, who takes an internship at a local Seattle magazine. She is assigned to assist her boss, Jeff (Jake Johnson), and another intern, the maddeningly mild-mannered Arnad (Karan Soni), in traveling to Ocean View, Washington, finding the man who wrote the aforementioned ad, and writing an article about him. The members of the trio each have their own very predictable character paths. Jeff is the quintessential overwhelmingly egotistical writer, who of course is only interested in one thing: tracking down (and having sex with) a former fling who now lives in Ocean View. Arnad doesn’t talk much, instead sticking closely to the terms of the assignment. He seems intent on getting it over with as soon as possible so that he can return to his comfort zone. Darius sets us up from the first seconds of the film to believe that she is only capable of expecting the worst, but ends up giving the audience a glimmer of hope. Emotionally, she seems to be at bottom, so it seems things can only get better for her.
As the story unfolds, Darius meets Kenneth, the man behind the ad. While Jeff’s attempt to establish a rapport with Kenneth is unsuccessful, Darius is able to form an alliance with him by pretending to play along with his version of reality. It’s doesn’t take long for the audience to fall in love with the sincerity, intensity, and sheer vulnerability Darius and Kenneth begin to show each other as they prep, train, and plan for their mission: traveling back in time to the year 2001. Darius’s goal is to prevent her mother’s death (or so she says), while Kenneth plans to prevent his one true love from being killed (or so he says). After a run-in with some government agents occurs, our hearts and minds are given the ultimate test as we hold out hope for Kenneth and Darius’s unlikely success.
Safety Not Guaranteed systematically breaks down the idea that anything blatantly impossible can be possible, as long as people invest enough trust, heart, and desire for everything in life to be good again. The film also has one of the most beautiful and unexpected endings audiences have seen in ages. For me, when a movie manages to invoke outward displays of emotion, it’s definitely worth a closer look. Safety Not Guaranteed is that sort of movie.
In spite of the fascinating and original plot, the real beauty in this film comes from the dialogue between the main characters. Each character is stuck in their own stage of arrested development (fitting for a film whose plot revolves around traveling through time), and watching each of them learn from the blunt mannerisms of the other characters around them is tremendously entertaining. In the end, Safety Not Guaranteed tells us to seize the day, to pay attention to the many possibilities illuminated by our daily lives in the present, and to avoid dwelling on the past or taking what we have now for granted. You just have to ask yourself: Can you look your fear in the eye? And what’s your real reason for wishing you could go back?
