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Review: Safety Not Guaranteed

An act of nostalgia
By ANN LEWINSON  |  June 14, 2012
3.0 3.0 Stars



For a generation weary of Zooey Deschanel's manic pixie and of staring down a future of student loans and dreary internships, Aubrey Plaza, the deadpan alt-comic who could have stepped out of the pages of Ghost World, may be the next dream girl. "Everything cool is gone," she mourns as a Seattle magazine intern traveling with a womanizing reporter (Jake M. Johnson) and a fellow intern (Karan Soni) to find a man (Mark Duplass) who placed a classified ad seeking a companion to go back in time. While she does the legwork, the reporter embarks on his own figurative time-travel, determined to hook up with an old girlfriend. With its well-constructed screenplay, sharp dialogue and unapologetic sincerity, this first feature from former SNL interns Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly is its own act of nostalgia, although Benjamin Kasulke's jittery widescreen cinematography, for which vintage Panavision lenses were affixed to a digital camera, may make you want to go back in time yourself.

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