Safety first

In theaters Friday: The Call, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone
New on Blu-ray: Hitchcock, Life of Pi

When I was 17, one of my best friends came to me with a hilarious want ad he’d just read about online. It went a little like this: “Someone to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. You’ll get paid when we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before.” Of course, the first thing we did was duplicate this prank verbatim in our school newspaper, but then we began discussing other possibilities presented by this bizarre piece of pop culture whatever.

“Maybe a movie?” we thought. After all, it was only a few years since we had pieced together our own homemade time travel comedy, something akin to Back to the Future filtered through bad rip-offs of The State and hours and hours of Green-era R.E.M. We never did make that movie, but last year someone else did.

Safety Not Guaranteed stars New Orleans native Mark Duplass as the reclusive ad writer or who or may not have invented time travel to repair a broken relationship. He’s harboring a devastating secret about the past and serves as an unreliable, though never unlikable, protagonist. Parks and Recreation‘s Aubrey Plaza plays a young editorial intern tasked by her uncouth superior to get as close to Duplass as possible in order to get the real story behind the ad. Is this guy insane, a genius, or a little bit of both?

While forgoing the traditional slapstick comedy route, Safety instead aims for being a hybrid critic of magazine story gathering (easy, Hollywood!) and an oddball, Sundance-ready love story. It’s a film about putting trust in relationships that have no concrete outcomes; it’s about outcasts, physically and emotionally, placing themselves on the line for a chance at connecting with someone else; it’s about risk. And so the film’s tension is strung not on whether Duplass’ pie-in-the-sky claims are true but whether or not he and Plaza will connect enough to take that leap of relational faith together.

While it sags in places, Safety is that rare breed of indie comedy that actually has something to say. It doesn’t always say it effectively, but at least it is talking. Plus, Duplass gives a touchingly offbeat performance as a true believer who, despite all odds, is never predictable or commonplace or a caricature of crazy. Safety gets a lot of things right, but if you’re looking for a tons of laughs, just watch Duplass as a midwife on The Mindy Project.

Watch the trailer for Safety Not Guaranteed below: