Safety Not Guaranteed

Rewinding Regrets

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Rated: R  Some sexual references and language.
Release Date: June 8, 2012
Runtime:  1 hour 24 minutes

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Director: Colin Trevorrow
Writers: David Connolly
Cast:  Aubrey Plaza, Jake M. Johnson, Karan Soni, Mark Duplass, William Hall Jr., Kristen Bell, Mary Lynn Johnson, Jenica Bergere

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SYNOPSIS: One Seattle magazine reporter and two interns track down the person who wrote a classified personal ad looking for a companion to travel through time with.

REVIEW: Writer/director of the 2004 documentary Reality Show, Colin Trevorrow, returns to direct a independent sci-fi dramedy written by television movie Gary: Under Crisis scribe Derek Connolly which Trevorrow also directed. This year, Safety Not Guaranteed was shown at the Sundance Film Festival, garnering a nomination for the Grand Jury Prize (Colin Trevorrow) and winning for the Waldo Salt Screening Award (Derek Connolly). 

Darius (Aubrey Plaza, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Parks and Recreation) goes through life in a denied depressed funk, working as an intern at a Seattle-based magazine. When the boss Bridget (Mary Lynn Rajskub, 24) looks to her reporters for new stories, Jeff (Jake M. Johnson, 21 Jump Street) brings up a classified ad he had come across where the submitter of the ad asks for a companion to time travel with. Spinning it to his boss as a gripping expose on the writer of the classified ad, Jeff, intern Darius and intern Arnau (Karan Soni, Touch) travel to the small coastal town of Ocean View to investigate the owner of the PO Box on the ad. When Darius discovers the owner of the box is a man named Kenneth (Mark Duplass, Your Sister's Sister), she follows him to find out more about him, where he work, and where he lives. When Jeff can't any more details from Kenneth when he poses as a responder to the ad, Darius is asked to approach Kenneth as a better suited possible companion for the ad. Once Kenneth starts to trust Darius, she realizes that there may be more at work than just a crackpot with a hair-brained notion of time travel, especially when she, Jeff, and Arnau discover that there are other, more government agency types following Kenneth too.

    WANTED: Somebody to go back in time with me.
    This is not a joke. You'll get paid after we get back. 
    Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. 
    I have only done this once before.

Derek Connolly wrote this script based on a real classified personal advertisement that found itself on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in the "Headlines" segment. As intriguing as the original ad was, Connolly and Trevorrow craft an even better story for film. Set in Washington state, Trevorrow portrays the Ocean View town as a hidden, out of the way, sleepy summer getaway - a far cry from the Seattle skyline filled with cynical magazine employees looking to debunk and interview the obvious loon who would write up such a crazy Wanted ad. Duplass' Kenneth must be crazy by all accounts but comes across as intelligent and hopeful. Even his absurd theories of quantum entanglement and divergent and alternate timelines, and paranoia about phantom agencies tailing his movements and recording his conversations doesn't dissuade or diminish our care for him or the mission. Comically, Kenneth runs through silly target practices with handguns and his new friend Darius. Darius may be in a several year funk, but her sharp wit delivers several great one-liners, including a response to the query of facing certain death. Connolly and Trevorrow add in the notion of nostalgic romance with Kenneth's long-standing quest to save an old girlfriend Belinda (Kristen Bell, Big Miracle) from death, dedicating his efforts to return to before the accident. Reporter Jeff returns to Ocean View with the singular mission to reconnect with an old teenage high school fling with a girl named Liz (Jenica Bergere, Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer). Coupled with the romantic notions is the dramatic twinge of regret that accompanies both the anguishing sudden loss of love and the idolization of a love lost to the days of the calendar and the miles of the road.

Connolly and Trevorrow brilliantly cast Safety Not Guaranteed, almost guaranteeing a superior film. Aubrey Plaza, already well-versed in cynical, crass behavior as April Ludgate on NBC's Parks and Recreation, brings the same intensity and bite to the role of Darius. Jeff, played by Jake M. Johnson, conveys the same manic flighty demeanor that serves him so well as Nick from New Girl. Karan Soni, as intern Arnau, doesn't share Darius and Jeff's cynicism, instead relying on innocence and romanticism to get by. Mark Duplass, as Kenneth, manages to balance an obvious obsessive unattainable science with the pursuit of his life's mission, like Don Quixote tilting at windmills. Jenica Bergere completes the main cast as the former object of Jeff's adolescent desires, Belinda's eyes gleaming with the same wants and needs as when she was younger. While none of the cast are big screen superstars, their humanity and realism is what makes the film a success.

We all know that time travel is only real in books and in the movies. In the world of Safety Not Guaranteed, time travel is no more attainable than it is here in the real world. But Kenneth believes he can do it, and slowly starts to convert Darius as well. With actual agents tailing Kenneth, Jeff, Darius, and Arnau start to believe that there is something more at work than meets the eye. Even though the likes of Einstein never broke the physical barriers of space/time, we all wish there was a way back. Regrets of poor decisions, unforeseen dramatic events of our youth, and more plague our stray thoughts at any given moment. What would have happened if we had asked that girl or guy out on a date? What if we would have turned right instead of left at the stop light? What if our last words would have been different? When our elders impart their wisdom on the younger generations, they are attempting to erase the errant mistakes of their own youth.

Safety Not Guaranteed is a rare film that bucks the normal conventions, characters, and concepts. It entertains throughout, never skipping a beat or losing our attention. Even as each character faces their own pains of regret and questions decisions made, we all wonder and hope that Kenneth can actually get his device to work - at least once more. 

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WORTH: Matinee or DVD

Jeff, Who Lives At Home

Looking for Kevin

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Rated: R  Language, some drug use and sexual references
Release Date: March 16, 2012
Runtime: 1 hr 23 mins

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Director:  Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass

Writers: Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass
Cast:  Jason Segel, Ed Helms, Susan Sarandon, Judy Greer, Rae Dawn Chong, Steve Zissis

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SYNOPSIS: When 30-year-old Jeff is told to got out of the house to buy wood glue for a broken pantry door shutter, he ventures out of the basement letting the universe guide his path throughout the day.

REVIEW: Jay and Mark Duplass, writers and directors of the 2005 Sundance breakout hit The Puffy Chair, as well as Baghead and Cyrus, combine their collective writing and vision again for another off-beat semi-comedic drama Jeff, Who Lives at Home. Don't let the title fool you, hardly any of the film takes place inside the Jeff's home.

30-year-old slacker pothead Jeff (Jason Segel, The Muppets) resides in his widowed mother Sharon (Susan Sarandon, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps) basement. Letting the cosmos guide his life, Jeff sits and waits for his destiny to reveal itself. On his mother's birthday, Jeff's mother calls to demand that Jeff get out of the house, onto a bus, and to the local Home Depot to pick up wood glue for a broken pantry door shutter before she comes home from work. When a mis-dialed call asking for Kevin comes in, Jeff sees the call as a sign that guides him throughout the day. What starts as a bus ride, soon becomes stalking as Jeff follows a ball player with the name Kevin stitched on the back of his jersey. Enter Jeff's brother Pat (Ed Helms, The Hangover Part II) who starts the day revealing to his wife Linda (Judy Greer, The Descendants) he has bought a Porsche and ends up running into the cosmically guided Jeff who assists Pat in following Linda when it appears that his wife may be cheating on him. Meanwhile, Sharon becomes the focus of a secret admirer who sends her a picture of a flower and converses with her through the office's instant chat interface. As Sharon tries to uncover the man who is either interested in her or playing a practical joke on her, she confides her findings with close coworker Carol (Rae Dawn Chong, Cyrus).

What seems to be a series of random, unrelated events (as written above) is actually a closely wound story. Jeff's way of thinking about his life and the purpose of his life is akin to how he views M. Night Shyamalan's film Signs. When he is confronted by the first Kevin (Evan Ross, Pride) of the day, he tries to impress upon the young basketball player that the reason why he was following the young man was because life is like the movie. Even at the beginning of the film, Jeff actually dictates into a recording device how important and decisive the elements of Signs is in terms of how he sees the world.

Although a family, Jeff, his brother Pat and his wife Linda, and their mother Sharon are a broken family even though living in the same town. Pat doesn't understand why Jeff is the way he is. Sharon wonders why her wonderful cute sons have grown up to be so different than what she remembers them as they were growing up. Pat and Linda live with blinders on and are so passive aggressive in their relationship with each other, the bonds of their marriage are disintegrating even as they sit together at the kitchen table.

As Jeff's day is shaped by signs comprised primarily with references to people and things designated with the name Kevin, Jeff finds himself joining up with his brother at points, then forced to abandon Pat as another 'Kevin' sign comes into view. The journey that starts off as an earnest effort to get to the supply store for wood glue becomes a funny and touching adventure.

Jason Segel brings his brand of Knocked Up stoner sensibility and open faith to the role of Jeff. Ed Helms dials down his Andy Bernard (The Office) stamina without losing the kinetic nervousness that Pat has sitting just under the surface. Sarandon and Dawn Chong, both still beautiful, prove that talent and grace will shape actresses throughout entire careers.

Jeff, Who Lives at Home is a surprisingly touching and real look at life with a bit of light humor thrown in. The situations that Jeff gets into or that Pat gets Jeff into offer a down to earth story that draws the audience in for a fine movie going experience. Jeff, Who Lives at Home will never be considered George Clooney's The Descendants, but it covers similar ground in an off-beat Louisiana sort of way.

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WORTH: Matinee or Rental