Aubrey Plaza’s R-Rated Sci-Fi Comedy Is A Top-Secret Time Travel Mission

By Robert Scucci
| Published 1 second ago

When it comes to time travel films, I’ll always champion the low-budget, independent movies that focus squarely on the consequences of causality rather than the time travel apparatus itself. Films like Primer (2004), The Infinite Man (2014), and Timecrimes (2007) all have virtually no budget and very little, if any, special effects, but they’re so concerned with the human condition that it doesn’t matter. Another film I’ll add to this list is 2012’s Safety Not Guaranteed, led by Aubrey Plaza and Mark Duplass.

The film has very little time travel in it, and instead focuses on ideas of arrested development, deferred dreams, missed connections, and letting go of the past. Through its characters’ ordeals, we learn that not everything you see is exactly as it seems, and that finding the truth requires earning someone’s trust. But at its heart, it tells the story of broken people doing what they think they need to do to fix their lives, which on the surface don’t seem all that broken in the first place.

Chasing A Lead To Crazy Town

Safety Not Guaranteed centers on the titular phrase included in a classified ad written by Kenneth Calloway (Mark Duplass), stating, “Wanted: Someone 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.”

The reason Seattle Magazine writer Jeff Schwensen (Jake Johnson) wants to investigate this advertisement is because it will bring him to the same town as one of his old flames, Liz (Jenica Bergere), who he wants to confess his love to. He brings along Arnau (Karan Soni) and intern Darius Britt (Aubrey Plaza) to locate Kenneth and see if he’s actually the real deal, or some sort of nutjob.

Turns out, he’s kind of both. Blowing his cover almost immediately, Jeff defers to Darius, who earns Kenneth’s trust over the next few days as he reveals his mission: saving the life of his girlfriend, who was killed in a car wreck over a decade ago. Darius reveals that she similarly wants to save the life of her mother, who passed away when she was 14 years old.

As Darius and Kenneth open up to each other, sharing past traumas and future aspirations alike, matters get complicated when two secret agents confront the journalists about Kenneth’s activities, as they have reason to believe he’s been chatting with government officials and stealing classified technology to build his time travel apparatus that very well may work. While Darius has been truthful with Kenneth about everything in her life except how she initially came into contact with him, she now has to worry about him finding out she’s actually a journalist who’s simply looking for a spicy story.

Two Broken People Not Knowing What Needs Fixing

The reason Safety Not Guaranteed works so well is because of how emotionally disarming Mark Duplass is as Kenneth Calloway. He’s certainly off his rocker, but when Darius actually talks to him and gets to know him, you can’t help but fall in love with his earnestness. He’s too smart for his own good, a surprisingly great marksman, trains himself in hand-to-hand combat and other survival tactics, and generally acts like a 12-year-old playing army in his backyard while doing all of the above.

Aubrey Plaza, who had all but perfected the disaffected but sincerely curious vibe by the time she worked on this film, is the perfect person to get Mark to open up, express himself through his art and music, and eventually elaborate on the next phases of his mysterious time travel mission. What you get is two people broken by past tragedies trying to move on with their lives, who realize that maybe the present isn’t so bad so long as they’re in the right company.

Safety Not Guaranteed is not slapstick funny, but it gets its humor through that quirky, Napoleon Dynamite kind of awkwardness. We eventually get some time travel action, but this movie was never about its final destination. It’s about the journey that leads us there.

As of this writing, you can stream Safety Not Guaranteed for free on Tubi.

SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED SCORE