Directed by Colin Trevorrow
Screenplay by Derek Connolly
Stars: Aubrey Plaza, Mark Duplass, Jake Johnson, Karan Soni, Jenica Bergere, Jeff Garlin, Kristen Bell and Mary Lynn Rajskub
There was a lot of buzz with Safety Not Guaranteed when it opened last summer. It was my intention to catch it when it was in theaters, but I was too late. Now that the movie is on DVD, I hesitant that I might not like it. I liked the movie for the most part, but it start off a little strange for my taste.
Darius (Plaza) is an intern for magazine in Seattle. Much like Aubrey Plaza's other characters, she is a snarky morose girl that hates everything and everyone. Darius wants to do something bigger than she is currently doing. She gets her chance when a reporter, Jeff (Johnson) has an idea for a piece. He pitches doing a pieces on a guy that puts out an ad for a partner to go back in time with him. Jeff takes Darius and another intern, Arnau (Soni) to the city where the ad was placed. Darius manipulates the guy, Kenneth (Duplass) into letting her be that partner for the time travel adventure.
As stated before, it irritates me when someone is doing the same persona is every single role that they were in. I have a problem with Aubrey Plaza playing the role like Michael Cera. It felt like I was going to hate the movie, but when the other characters were introduced, the irritation subsided. At first, I didn't like the Jeff character. I thought he was just another jerk that wants to screw around, but his arch surprised me.
The other thing that made me fall in love with the movie was the chemistry between Darius and Kenneth. You wouldn't think that the guy who might a madman or a mad genius would be someone that Darius can connect with.
The movie made me think if I could make a time machine, where would I go? It makes you think of the regrets people have in their lives. Do I have regrets? Absolutely. If I could go back in time, I would. Besides this movie is not explicitly about time travel like Looper, Primer or Timecrimes.
My Rating
I had to look to the right to interpret your rating system. It turns out I liked this film quite a bit more than you did. Right now it would be my second favorite movie of 2012.
ReplyDeleteWhat you mentioned about characters becoming far more than the stereotype they first appeared to be is one of the key reasons this is such a good film. We think they are just going to be "the emo chick", "the nerdy guy", "the asshole boss", and "the weird guy" but each of them becomes a real person as the film goes on.
I agree. I grown to like this movie, because they broke away from what the characters were pigeon holed into. The time machine elements played second fiddle here which I liked.
DeleteI was a big fan of Safety Not Guaranteed. I thought that Plaza actually did go beyond her usual persona as Darius. She starts out in a similar role, but she goes well beyond that point when we learn more about her. I definitely agree that the chemistry of Darius and Kenneth is one of the best parts. Each character doesn't fall into a standard type, and the end worked even better than I expected.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the ending, because it was ambiguous what happened. I had a big issue with the ending of Looper that made me not like the movie that much.
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