Safety Not Guaranteed

Darius Britt is a disillusioned college graduate who lives at home with her widower father and works as an intern at Seattle Magazine. One of the magazine's writers, Jeff Schwensen, proposes to investigate a newspaper classified ad that reads:[5]

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. I have only done this once before. SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED.

Jeff's boss Bridget approves of his story idea and Jeff selects his team: Darius and a man named Arnau, a studious biology major interning at the magazine to diversify his résumé. They travel to the seaside community of Ocean View to find and profile the person behind the ad. Jeff later reveals an ulterior motive for this assignment: to track down a long-lost love interest who lives in town.

Darius discovers that the person behind the ad is Kenneth Calloway, a stock clerk at a local grocery store. Jeff's attempt to approach Kenneth alienates him, so Jeff orders Darius to make contact. Darius's disaffected attitude serves her well, and she quickly endears herself to Kenneth as she poses as a candidate to accompany him on his mission. While Kenneth is paranoid and believes that secret agents are tracking his every move, Darius gains his trust as she participates in a series of training exercises in the woods around his house and begins to develop feelings for him. She tells Kenneth about losing her mother when she was young and that her mission is to prevent it. Kenneth says his mission is to go back to 2001 and prevent the death of his old girlfriend Belinda, who was killed when someone drove a car into her house.

Meanwhile, Jeff tracks down Liz, a fling from his teenage years; although she is not as attractive as he recalls her being, they reconnect and sleep together. He asks her to come back with him to Seattle, but she believes this is just another fling for him, so she refuses. Upset by her rejection, Jeff takes Arnau out on the town and they pick up some young women. Jeff tells Arnau to not waste his youth and convinces him to spend the night with one of the women.

The next morning, Jeff receives a phone call from Bridget, who has been following up the team's notes on the story; she informs him that Belinda is still alive. During an interview, Darius learns Belinda was only friends with Kenneth and that Kenneth had driven into her then-boyfriend's house, but no one was injured. After the interview, Darius is questioned by two government agents who have been following Kenneth and believe that he may be a spy because of his communication with government scientists.

Darius returns to Kenneth's house to confront him, but Kenneth rationalizes Belinda is now alive because his time travel mission succeeded. Jeff runs in to warn them that the government agents are also on the property. Kenneth panics and runs into the woods. Darius follows Kenneth, who has boarded his time machine, which has been integrated into a small boat on the lake. Darius apologizes for lying to Kenneth, tells him everything else they shared was real, and joins him on the boat. Kenneth tells Darius that the mission is now only to go back for her. As Jeff, Arnau, and the agents watch, Kenneth and Darius activate the time machine and vanish. Kenneth and Darius are shown as they happily run through the woods. A filmed interview, presumably from earlier, shows Kenneth explaining why he chose to enlist a partner for his time travels.

• Aubrey Plaza as Darius Britt
• Mark Duplass as Kenneth Calloway
• Jake Johnson as Jeff Schwensen
• Karan Soni as Arnau
• Jenica Bergere as Liz
• Mary Lynn Rajskub as Bridget
• Kristen Bell as Belinda
• Jeff Garlin as Darius's father
• William Hall Jr. as Shannon

The film was shot in Seattle and Ocean Shores, Washington, and other locations within 30 miles of Seattle. It is also partially set in Seattle.[6] The film was shot with a Sony F3 camera using old Panavision lenses, which gave the film a desired "Hal Ashby look" for director Colin Trevorrow.[7] Production budget was reported by The Film Collaborative to be $750,000.[1] Duplass and his brother Jay received executive producer credit.

Safety Not Guaranteed has a 91% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on reviews from 148 critics; the average rating is 7.43/10. The site's critical consensus states: "Safety Not Guaranteed's ostensibly modest ambitions are outmatched by the movie's strong performances, beguiling charm, and heartfelt story."[8] Metacritic gives film a score of 72/100 based on reviews from 31 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[9]

Stephen Holden of The New York Times wrote that the story's shenanigans are "harnessed to a plaintive underlying theme about the fading dreams of those aspiring professionals in their 20s and 30s."[10] Roger Ebert praised the film for the quality of the dialogue, characters with depth and dimension, as well as Mark Duplass for his balanced performance.[11]

Safety Not Guaranteed has been called "one of the most influential films of the last decade" in terms of its effect on the film making industry. Made in 2012 with a first-time director and writer and costing less than a million dollars, this character-driven indie caught the eye of Netflix, foreshadowing the role of streaming in film creation and distribution and of such directors being tapped to direct big-budget films due to their experience with well-regarded small-budget films.[12]

• Official website
• Safety Not Guaranteed on IMDb
• Safety Not Guaranteed at AllMovie
• Safety Not Guaranteed at Rotten Tomatoes
• Safety Not Guaranteed at Box Office Mojo